Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton has dismissed suggestions of tension between herself and Minister for Enterprise Richard Bruton over the IMF’s support for her proposal that employers should pay up to four weeks of sick pay.
The IMF staff report, its response as part of the troika’s latest quarterly review of Ireland’s bailout programme, highlighted that Ireland was out of line with other countries in relation to sick pay.
The report expressed the IMF’s support for reform of sick leave practices “by requiring employers to pay for the first two to four weeks of illness”.
Ms Burton had to abandon her proposals for last December’s budget, to help cut the State’s almost €1 billion annual bill for sick pay because of opposition from Mr Bruton and the Fine Gael party.
Following the IMF’s backing Ms Burton said on RTE’s This Week programme that winning on the issue was “not question of me or any other member of the Government, it’s a question of what’s best for our society”.
The OECD had produced very detailed data showing Ireland was “completely out of line” with other countries on sick pay and the total cost to the exchequer of illness, disability and invalidity was almost €3 billion.
“The proposal is that employees themselves would cover the first three days of an illness and employers, particularly large employers, would cover up to four weeks.”
Ms Burton said “we would go into line over a period of time with other countries”. She believed it would have a “very positive effect in terms of people at work” because the emphasis “with both employer and employee would be on wellness rather than sickness”.
She pointed to the concerns of smaller employers who had “particular difficulties” with the proposal and she was open to discussions on those difficulties.
“In the North the period is six months and in almost all other EU countries and Australia and New Zealand the periods are far longer”.
