Paddy Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As Senator Sherlock said, this has to work for all workers. It has to work for employers as well. We have to be fair to employers as well. This is, as has been said, groundbreaking legislation.

I suppose everything is relative. Whether one is on a lower wage or a middle-income wage, one's outgoings will be relative to what one's income will be. If somebody is out sick, whether he or she is in the middle-income bracket or not, he or she cannot afford to be out of work either.

When this legislation is passed, and when it is enacted and up and running, we do not know where it will finish. In small businesses, when somebody is out sick they have got to get cover. Larger businesses can operate to some degree because they have more employees but if one has a small business with four or five employees and one person is out sick for whatever reason, that business more than likely has to get cover.

I had asked on Second Stage that we would look at surveys to see how many people in the public service are out sick because they are allowed sick days and whether everyone working in the public service take all of their sick days. In the private sector, what is the number of people who are out sick or are there statistics to show that people are going to work when they are sick? In the latter case, we know from the meat industry that that happens. We should have had some of those findings before being able to have a real overview of this legislation. In any event, we are passing this legislation without that knowledge now.

There will be a new industry providing locums, as is the case with doctors and dentists. This will apply where, for instance, one has a restaurant or a bar. People will work in one bar today and in another bar the next day, or they will work in one restaurant today and a different restaurant next week. That is the business they will be in. They will be covering for people who are out sick because, as I said, if one has a small business and one gets a phone call on Monday morning to say a person is not coming in because he or she is sick, it will throw the whole business into disarray, particularly given it is nearly impossible to get anybody at present. I can see a new locum industry growing from this.

We have to bear with the legislation that the Minister of State is bringing forward to see how it will pan out on the ground. That is my view on it.