Claims that statutory sick pay will undermine business

THE INTRODUCTION of a statutory sick pay scheme was undermining small enterprises across the State, Fianna Fáil’s spokesman on jobs, enterprise and innovation Dara Calleary claimed.

Mr Calleary said that a campaign was under way to inform businesses about the incoming threat of a new burden introduced by Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton. Fianna Fáil, he said, was encouraging businesses to act and lobby Government TDs to protect their capacity to employ more people and, in some cases, to stay in business.

“Nobody is denying that we need a proper and thought-out debate on the whole area of workplace absenteeism in Ireland,” he added. “However, forcing businesses to pay for the lack of a proper debate is not on.”

Introducing a Private Members’ motion highlighting the threat to SMEs by the sick pay scheme, Mr Calleary said that a Chambers Ireland survey of more than 500 businesses across the State showed that 60.7 per cent of respondents had said the cut in redundancy rebate had a negative impact on their business. Some 40.7 per cent had said it made them less likely to employ new staff; 18.1 per cent said it limited their business’s ability to survive, while 14.6 per cent said it had made them less competitive.

Mr Calleary said employers already paid billions in PRSI to cover the cost of sick leave. In 2010, employers paid €5 billion in contributions to the social insurance fund, which represented 75 per cent of the total.

“This covers sick pay benefits,” he added. “So it is fair to say that the current proposal would make employers pay on the double.”

Mr Calleary said that for the majority of employers, with a sick pay scheme in place, the additional cost of each week’s sick pay could be €188 per person.

Ms Burton said that an earlier Fianna Fáil, of the time of Seán Lemass, would have recognised the importance of statutory sick pay and having an honest examination of the matter.

“It was the very least that I could do to ask my officials to examine where the boundaries between the State and the private sector lie in the area of protection of people from loss of income from employment through illness,” she added.

Ms Burton said that Fianna Fáil in government had no problem raising the numbers claiming. She said that consideration of introducing a scheme revolved around two separate but strategic issues. Those were the need to secure exchequer savings and the requirement for positive policy reforms.

“The question of introducing statutory sick pay was advanced in the context of the comprehensive review of expenditure undertaken in 2011,” she added. “It was also considered on several occasions by Fianna Fáil in government.”