Rebecca Moynihan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will be sharing my time with Senator Hoey, and for clarification, Senator Sherlock will wrap up the debate on behalf of the Labour Party.

I thank my colleague, Senator Sherlock, for all the work she has put into this, in particular on leading the agenda on sick pay. Senator Sherlock has been a leading trade unionist in this country, and neither she nor the Labour Party has come late to the issue of workers' rights. I note, with some irony, a Fine Gael representative referring back to our manifesto on it, as if making out that we have just discovered that this is an issue here today. However, there is a particular urgency, and this is why I am going to argue against the amendment to the motion to extend it for six months.

Covid has exposed many fault lines and inequalities, but a lack of sick pay has been the one that has caused the most hindrance for our ability to fight this virus. Many healthcare professionals who we depend on to care for older and vulnerable people in the community or in nursing homes receive no sick pay from their employers. I have spoken to healthcare workers who tell me that the cleaners and porters in their HSE building do not get any sick pay because they work for an agency. People who work in this building, who come and service us, also do not get sick pay because they are working for an agency. There are an awful lot of State services, not just microbusinesses, that we pay for and provide, that do not provide sick pay for their workers. When the Minister of State talks about microbusinesses and enterprise, he should remember that there are real incidences that can be written into contracts, that can be controlled, and that can be made part of procurement so that the agencies are forced to pay sick pay, but we do not do that.

Agency workers in care and nursing homes do not get sick pay. The vast majority of workers in low-paid or precarious work are not entitled to sick pay. These are our front-line workers. These are the people whose incomes we need to protect and who are doing the heavy lifting during this crisis. These are the people whom we clapped for, whom we tweet platitudes at, and who the Minister of State is saying need to wait six months to get this done. For these workers now, with growing numbers in the middle of a pandemic, it is not acceptable to say to wait for six months. We had an urgency back in March when it came to addressing this virus. We are introducing this motion on sick pay in the context of a global pandemic and rising case numbers, and when so many workers who are working in affected industries have to go to work tomorrow.

For these workers, in the middle of this pandemic, there is also a housing crisis. Does the Minister of State think that somebody who is reduced to hot-bedding because they cannot afford a room will be able to afford to go without pay and not go into work tomorrow? The failure of the Government to provide for sick pay during the pandemic while ending the eviction ban and rent freeze effectively guarantees that people will lose their homes if they do not go to work.

Workers should never be expected to choose between their wages and their health. The lack of sick pay, combined with the housing crisis, now means that many low-paid, young or migrant workers are now living in overcrowded private rental accommodation and forced to go to work every day because they simply cannot afford not to. Some people might refer to this as house parties that young people are having when in fact it is just younger people living in bad accommodation that is not suitable for them.

Many of these people are in unregistered tenancies, falling outside the remit of an under-resourced Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, who have no protection against slum landlords who will kick them out the minute they fall behind in the payment of rent. At the very start of this pandemic, Threshold noted that there would be many people who would be sick who would be left unable to pay their rent because of the shortfall. There has been no indication from this Government that a blanket nationwide eviction ban will be reintroduced, despite the fact that the whole country had moved to level 3 and there are restrictions on travel.

We are all in this together as long as a person is living in a home that he or she owns, with room for a home office in which that person can work from home, and he or she does not need to avail of sick pay. Working from home is pushing the responsibility for providing work infrastructure onto the worker. When it comes to workers' rights, why is the argument that we hear always about the burden that the legal right to sick pay would impose on some employers without acknowledging now the severe burden being placed on employees who are simply trying to follow the public health advice to stay safe and stay in their own homes if they are displaying symptoms? We have heard the same arguments time and again regarding basic entitlements for workers. It was a huge burden to pay women going on maternity leave, to pay workers double their time for Sundays and bank holidays, and to provide reasonable accommodation for workers. It was still the right thing to do.

When I have a look at this motion and listen to the Fine Gael speakers in the House, I hear all the emphasis being placed not on the workers who are going to work in the middle of a pandemic but on what they are saying are small or microbusinesses, and on consideration of the practical issues and consequences that may arise, such as increased business costs and viability as a result of the proposals. There will not be many restaurants that do not pay workers sick pay that will stay open if a worker goes into work sick and manages to infect everybody. There will not be many places that will stay open if they are linked with an outbreak. This is being done in the context of a global pandemic. It is the right thing to do for the long term, but it is particularly the right thing to do with a sense of urgency.

I urge the Government not to amend this motion, not to delay the introduction of statutory sick pay, and use the urgency it showed in March to introduce statutory sick pay again.