Seanad debates
Wednesday, 29 June 2022
Sick Leave Bill 2022: Committee Stage
10:00 am
Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source
I thank the Minister of State for his response. The difficulty I have is that if we put barriers in the way of workers qualifying for sick pay they will go to work sick. If they go to work sick, they will make other people sick and that will impact the business in a detrimental way. We have been through two horrendous years of Covid. We now think we may not be out of it in the winter and it could be back again. How would it make sense in the context of what we have just been through and what we may have to face again this winter to say to workers that in the first 13 weeks of work, they will not qualify for sick pay? How does that make sense from the perspective of the employee or the employer? Let us face it, and I know this from my time as a trade union official, when workers lose sick pay they go to work sick rather than not attend because they need the money. It is as simple as that. This is my concern.
We support the Bill. We do not believe the Government has the balance right and that three days is far too short an amount of time to give at the beginning. Rather than fight the debate intensively again, let us agree that the balance needs to be struck in a way that is effective. In the context of Covid, how does it make sense to tell workers that in the first three months of their employment, they do not qualify for sick pay?In that context, if that person contracts Covid, what should he or she do?
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