Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As the Deputy is aware, the Sick Leave Act 2022 introduced employer-paid, medically certified, statutory sick leave for the first time in Ireland. From 1 January 2023, the initial statutory entitlement was up to thee days' sick leave, which increased to five days on 1 January 2024.

As the Deputy will be aware, statutory sick leave, and its phased roll-out, was designed in consultation with the Minister for Social Protection and the social partners. A ministerial decision will be required by the end of this year on the third phase of this plan, including whether to increase the entitlement to seven days next year. To make this decision and in line with section 6 of the Sick Leave Act, the Minister must have regard to several key factors, including:

the state of the economy generally, the business environment and national competitiveness ... the state of society generally, the public interest and employee well-being ... the potential impact [of] ... making an order [to vary the number of days] ... data on earnings and labour costs as published by the ... [CSO] ... the views of [employee and] employer representative bodies ... [and any] other matters ... consider[ed] relevant.

I am aware that members of the business community have raised concerns about the overall impact of increased labour regulation on the cost of doing business. Therefore, to consider the impact of any potential further increases to sick leave, my departmental officials are currently exploring with the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, the possibility of capturing more detail on the impact of the changes to statutory sick leave, which, I understand, could include further analysis of existing CSO data sets, as well as potentially gathering new data. As this work is at an early stage, it would not be appropriate to speculate on potential outcomes at this point. However, it is important to note that a decision on this will be required by the end of the year.

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