Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am glad we are discussing this motion here again, as it gives us in the Labour Party another chance to implore the Green Party, Fianna Fáil, and Fine Gael to reconsider the Government decision to kick the issue of sick pay down the line.

As my colleague, Senator Higgins, said, the amendment includes the line, "an alternative to sick pay", which I think is a laudable thing to put in, but unless the alternative is actually to eradicate illness altogether, which is a bold thought in the Covid crisis, I cannot really fathom what the alternative is going to be. Either we are on board with the national sick pay regime or we are not. Also, the Minister of State said that the Government needs more time and has asked for us to accept that. Actually, no, I do not accept it. I do not accept it on behalf of workers, and I am sure many workers do not accept that there needs to be more time to figure out how to deal with sick pay.

In my short time in this House, I have been called upon to vote on more than one piece of so-called emergency legislation, but, sadly, not a provision for sick pay. I find it absolutely baffling that this Government can call as an emergency a shortage of pallets or any of the other things that we discussed and for which, we were told, we had to speed through legislation in a matter of hours, but yet ensuring sick pay for workers during a global health pandemic is not an emergency and can be looked at again in six months. There is also reference to a public consultation, and I am sure that there are Senators, on this side of the House especially, for whom public consultation, given the palaver with the forestry Bill, sends a bit of a shiver down their spines. Will we even get to see this public consultation?What will be included in the public consultation? We did not get to see that during our consideration of the Forestry (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2020. I certainly hope that the standard of public consultation for that Bill will be not be the standard that applies this time.

It is astonishing that there are Members on the Government side listing the benefits of sick pay for all and murmuring support for it while at the same time kicking it down the road for six months. We are debating the radical idea that, in 2020, during a global pandemic, workers should not lose wages because of illness. I am thinking about the many thousands of lecturers, teachers and tutors in our higher and further education sector. Since the beginning of the crisis, they have moved from online work to the campus and from blended work to online work again. They have been sent back and forth, up and down and all around, usually with no more notice than a few days. They will spend this autumn and winter going above and beyond what is required to deliver for as many students as they can. At this time, we are asking workers to blur the line between work and home more than ever. Workers' right to sick leave and to time away from their work in their own home for the sake of their own health is imperative. There are very few certainties in life at present but there is absolutely no room for ambiguity regarding the importance of people’s health. When one is working from home - again, I am thinking about the lecturers and staff working in higher education - there is no friendly colleague or understanding manager who would normally send one home when one is clearly ill. Instead, workers fear losing a day's pay. As lecturers and teachers work from their own houses, without the security of guaranteed sick pay, they are more likely than ever to work through illness. If this pandemic has taught us anything, surely it has to be that our health is our wealth. No workers should have to choose between their well-being and their livelihood.

The language used by the Government indicates there is a "commitment" to addressing this matter in a couple of months. Sick pay is not an engagement ring. This is not about making a commitment to workers; they need sick pay now. There are people watching this debate and contacting Labour Party representatives saying they need this now. They do not want a commitment down the line; they need it now.

I reiterate our plea to Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party to support this motion and withdraw their amendment. Workers do not want to watch their representatives in these parties standing up to list off all the benefits of sick pay and then having the gall to vote against this motion. Either the Government is about creating a social floor below which workers cannot fall or it is not. It either supports parents, through the Labour Party's force majeurelegislation to allow parents to be able to take care of a sick child, or it does not. Quite frankly, it either supports workers or it does not. The Government’s amendment indicates to workers that it does not support them right now. In a global pandemic, this is a nonsense. When the Government says it needs more time, I do not accept it. We were told there was so much other legislation to be rushed through this House. We were moving like maniacs trying to pass it. We were flying through legislation. I have never moved so fast in my life. That was an emergency and this is an emergency. That there is no sick pay for workers during a global pandemic is an emergency. I do not accept the argument that the Government needs more time.