Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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I want to discuss the importance of sick leave. I genuinely thought I had done a good job convincing the Government how important sick leave is, but after reading the budget, it turns out that I have a little more work to do. During the pandemic, we spent hours discussing the importance of sick leave and of workers being able to safely and affordably stay out of work when they were not feeling well. I thought we all agreed that sick leave is an important and very powerful instrument of public health.

Following on from that and as a result of pressure from the trade union movement and ourselves on the Opposition benches, a limited amount of paid sick leave was introduced. It was limited to 70% of a person's wages, but also in terms of the number of days. For workers on low incomes, there is already a barrier. I had a discussion back and forth with the Minister at the time about having to pay for the services of a doctor. We live in a country where the cost of going to see a GP can often be prohibitively expensive, particularly for those workers who are on low incomes. Those workers have to get over that hurdle. They have to get medical certificates, which I argued at the time would act as a barrier. Notwithstanding that, there was no appetite on the part of the Government to back down. There was, however, a roadmap in place to ensure that the entitlement to sick leave entitlement would be increased - not to an astronomical level - to ten days in 2026.

I note from the budget that it is the Government's intention to postpone the sick leave entitlement increase that was due on 1 January 2025. That is incredibly mean-spirited. I do not think it is what Government should be doing. A signal was sent to workers that the Government had finally understood what we were telling it about the importance of sick leave. If the Minister of State visits the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, website, he will still see that the intention is there because everybody thought the sick leave entitlement was going to increase.

I was very disappointed to see Government parties, or at least one of them, put this on a leaflet and hand it to people. It is as if deferring the increase in the sick leave entitlement for workers is something to be proud of. If there is a pressing economic reason for doing it, I would love to hear it. Clearly, employers are struggling with the cost of doing business. We know that, but a range of measures can be undertaken to support those employers. It does not have to hit workers in that way. It is really disturbing to hear the Government repeatedly pit worker against business and business against worker. There is nothing wrong with workers expecting that when the Government lays out a roadmap, that roadmap will be adhered to. It is the minimum that can be expected. We already had a great deal of back and forth with regard to the barriers the Government has put in place. However, my understanding was that we had all agreed that sick leave entitlements are an important instrument of public health. I would like to hear from the Minister of State that this deferral of the increase in sick leave entitlement will not be going ahead.

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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Gabhaim buíochas leis an Teachta as ucht an deis labhairt faoi seo. I am taking this on behalf of the Minister of State, Deputy Higgins, and the Minister, Deputy Peter Burke. I know the House will join with me in expressing our sympathies to the Minister on the passing of his mother.

As the Deputy indicated, statutory sick leave is a valuable public health intervention. It reduces the risk of workplace accidents and curtails infectious disease transmission. It is one of a number of measures this Government has introduced to protect workers. The phased introduction of the scheme was designed to achieve a balance between responding to the cost concerns of employers by giving them time to adjust and plan for the new responsibility, while offering workers, often those in low-paid, precarious roles and disproportionately younger people and women, as Deputy O'Reilly said, certainty about their rights.

It is important to recognise, however, that providing new employment rights protections involves increased costs for employers. Members of the business community, including many SMEs, have shared their concerns about the cumulative costs of providing new rights for workers, including statutory sick leave. To respond to these concerns and assess as fully as possible the impact of any potential further increases to sick leave, research is being conducted on the impact of sick leave to date. My Department worked with the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, on the first phase of this research, which is now completed. This work resulted in the identification of certain informational and data gaps, including data required to identify workers and firms who are currently covered by a company sick pay policy. To bridge some of these gaps, my Department commissioned a specialist market research company to conduct a firm-level survey, representative of the sectoral and size distribution of Irish companies. The results of the survey have now been received and that data is currently being analysed by officials from the Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service.

In addition, officials in my Department are also working on qualitative research, including conducting one-to-one interviews with employers across a wide range of company types and sectors as well as employee representatives. This qualitative work will be used to provide more in-depth insights into the impact of the Sick Leave Act 2022. Furthermore, a stakeholder workshop was held at the end of September with regard to this. It is expected that the findings from this research, both quantitative and qualitative, along with an assessment of the wider factors enumerated in section 6 of the Sick Leave Act, including the state of the economy and society generally, will be made available for the Minister's to consider in the coming weeks.

It is important to note that this is a relatively new form of research. The Sick Leave Act itself has only been in operation since January 2023 and a comprehensive analysis of the sick pay landscape has not been undertaken to date in Ireland.

Once the Department and the Minister, Deputy Peter Burke, have received this evidence, he will give appropriate consideration to a decision on the further roll-out of the statutory sick leave scheme. We are cognisant in the Department that businesses and workers need certainty. It is worth noting, however, that, as per section 6(2) of the Act, we cannot make a regulation to vary the statutory sick leave entitlements before 1 January 2025.

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister tells me research is being conducted into the impact of paid sick leave. I could have saved the Department a fortune: the impact of paid sick leave being available to workers is that people who are sick can afford to not go to work. Hopefully they can afford to stay at home and get better and not bring whatever it is they have into their workplace and potentially infect other people there.

The Minister says the data is being analysed. Perhaps it is, but he has already announced that he is not going ahead with the proposed increase. Even at the slow pace of the Minister's timetable, he has already announced that it will not go ahead, so it does not matter what the data tells him. The announcement has been made. It has been put on a leaflet that they are going around handing to people. They are celebrating the fact that workers will not get the very modest increase in their entitlement to paid sick leave. The Minister of State acknowledged that in his contribution, and I did too. It is a very valuable tool of public health. It is an essential public health instrument. The Minister of State should not play with it in that way. It took a long time for workers to achieve access to paid sick leave and now that they have it, all of a sudden it is a burden and a cost. It is an instrument of public health and it should be regarded as such. Shame on the Minister of State for celebrating that workers are not going to get the modest increase in their sick leave entitlement. I was very disappointed, but not a little bit surprised, to see that being celebrated in that way. I do not think it is something that should be put on a leaflet, celebrated and shared in that way.

With the permission of the Chair, I very briefly add my own words of condolence to the Minister, Deputy Peter Burke, and his family at this very sad time.

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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Nobody is celebrating anything. I assure the Deputy that no official announcements have been made.

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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That is not the case.

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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The introduction of statutory sick leave marked a key policy development for this country. It was introduced by this Government. For the first time, employees have a statutory right to employer-paid sick leave. That was done without us having carried out any comprehensive analysis of the sick pay landscape in the country. The data being collected now will be valuable in bridging the gaps within the scheme. The qualitative study being undertaken by our officials will give us additional insight into existing sick leave policies and the gaps within it, and also the impacts on businesses and employees. We have to look at it on both frames. The research will be very clear in terms of existing company sick pay provisions and it will set out the landscape properly, which was not done previously.

I assure Deputy O'Reilly there is no intention to celebrate anything here. The information will be led by the data, as opposed to the current lack of information. I also assure her that there will be consultation before any final decisions are made.