Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail)
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This is more of a parliamentary question than an Adjournment matter so I will not add to the basic question, which is to get an indication from the Minister for the figures for public sector sick pay and private sector sick pay for 2010, 2011 and, if available, for 2012. There has been media coverage of this and some of the Minister's colleagues have mentioned the costs this will have for the State.

Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Senator for raising this question and apologise on behalf of the Minister for Social Protection, who is dealing with the Social Welfare Bill in the other House.

Illness benefit is a social insurance payment payable to insured persons who are unable to work due to illness, satisfy certain contribution conditions, are certified as unfit for work by a medical practitioner and are aged under 66. Expenditure on illness benefit was ¤943 million in 2010, ¤876 million in 2011 and in 2012 is expenditure is expected to be just under ¤800 million.

In terms of a customer breakdown between the public and private sector, one third of illness benefit claims received are from public sector employees and two thirds are from the private sector.

A study undertaken for the European Foundation for Living and Working Conditions in 2010 suggests an overall national absenteeism level of around 3.5%. The estimate draws upon a number of sources, including small-scale surveys undertaken by IBEC and SFA. The two surveys by ISME in 2007 and SFA in 2008 cover levels of absence in SMEs. The number of claimants on the Department's illness benefit schemes suggests an overall absence rate of around 4%, whereas a recent IBEC report suggested an overall rate of around 2.6%.

The Comptroller and Auditor General, in a special report on sickness absence in the Civil Service, published in 2009, estimated that some 5% of available working time was lost to sickness absence in 2007, with wide variations between Departments, grades, ages and genders.

The Department of Social Protection itself lost some 40,000 days to illness in 2011. These absences ranged from 20 plus working days to 200 plus working days in a small number of cases. To address this particular challenge, the Department's HR division is actively managing the minority of its staff who have the longest absences in order to facilitate a return to work, where feasible, at the earliest possible stage. The House will also be aware that proposals have been brought forward by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform which seek to address some of the factors behind the rates of absenteeism in the public sector. I assure the Senator that active management of the absenteeism is an intricate part of the day-to-day management within the Civil Service and public service overall.