Seanad debates

Tuesday, 17 July 2012

3:00 am

Photo of Mary Ann O'BrienMary Ann O'Brien (Independent)

I second Senator Mullins's call for a debate on the subject of sick pay, and I apologise to Senators for raising it again today. However, there are only 95 working days between now and the budget. Great damage could be done to the small and medium-sized business community. Over the weekend the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Richard Bruton, said that workers in the public sector take nearly twice as many sick days as their counterparts in the private sector. I was aware of that after researching this area in detail over the last number of weeks. The public sector absenteeism rate also compares very poorly with that of our EU counterparts, while the statistics for our private sector show it is among the best in Europe. The Minister, Deputy Bruton, said in a party briefing document that €40 million could quickly be saved if public sector workers took as few sick days as private sector employees. If average absences in the public sector, calculated at 11.3 days, could be reduced to the private sector average of six days, there could be significant benefits.

Under the proposals mooted by the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Joan Burton, employers would have to pay the first four weeks of staff sick pay, which would save the State €150 million. However, Deputy Bruton says that illness benefit claims lasting up to four weeks only account for 5% of the total cost of illness benefit claims, which leads me to question the logic behind the proposal to transfer the cost to the employer. As a business owner and having spoken to many fellow employers on the topic of changes to sick pay, I welcome the comments by the Minister, Deputy Bruton. The Government's mantra is that Ireland will become the best small country in the world in which to do business, but if the Government transfers the cost of paying the first four weeks of sick pay to the employer it will contradict its own mantra. If the Leader has not already done so, I ask him to arrange a debate on this early in the new term.

I second Senator John Whelan's call for a debate on alcohol. Perhaps we could also include the labelling of alcohol. It is a mystery why all alcohol, regardless of whether it is beer, wine or spirits, can be sold with no label whatsoever to indicate the content of the drink.

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