Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The legislative framework is there. We have had the budget. The budget was now a few weeks ago. I often hear from people in HR that the sick leave, in particular, is causing quite a lot of problems. One employer in County Clare provided me with a spreadsheet showing the sick leave his company has at the moment and how much it is costing. It is very worrying that you can phone some of these online doctors for appointments. One business was able to tell me that their employees can phone up, tell the doctor via a Zoom or phone call that they are unwell and cannot go in, and they will get a cert emailed to them by PDF. Once that has gone in and it is acceptable, they have to be paid sick leave for the day. I think that is wrong. Of course you get people who have flus and are feeling miserable, and who cannot work for a day, but employers are increasingly telling me that a lot of young people - as we all did in the day - go out on Friday night and are in a sad mess on Saturday morning and are unable to work. When the Minister of State and I were in that phase, in our youth, if we did not go to work, that was it. You did not get paid for it. Now that person at home is paid for the day and the business owner and his family probably have to come back in and backfill those shifts vacated by someone who is too sick to work. It is being abused, I think. There are always many good, valid cases but I think something needs to be done by regulation to tighten this up. It is absurd that someone would phone up a doctor and say they are not feeling great, be given a PDF and told to take the day off as they will get paid for it.

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