Minister for Social Protection, Joan Burton, is to revisit her plan to put the cost of the first few weeks of illness for employees on to the employer rather than on the state. The move is expected to save €23m for the exchequer in for one week of illness or €89m if the employer paid for four weeks of illness.
The change was suggested before the budget last december but was put on hiatis due to criticisim from employers and business owners.
The Minister said yesterday she was beginning a consultative process on the introduction of such a statutory sick-pay scheme where the employer shares some of the cost.
She said it was the beginning of the consultative process with employers and nothing had been decided yet. If statutory sick pay were to be introduced it could entail the employer being asked to continue paying the employee €188 per week in benefit. The period could be as short as the first week of sickness, or up to four weeks of illness.
However, employers’ group IBEC criticised the move saying that such a move would be at odds with the Government’s jobs strategy. It said employers already paid billions in PRSI to cover the cost of sick leave.
Mark Fielding of the Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association said there was a problem with absenteeism in the public sector but not in the private sector. “It’s false accounting by pushing the whole cost to employers. If this was pushed through, and we had to pay for the first week or four weeks, we would end up with jobs being lost”.
While there is no doubt that there must be some burdening sharing on this issue, the timing of this is completely wrong. We hear so much about getting people to hire staff and yet the incentives to do so are cut on a weekly basis. If the government wants businesses to employ it must choose the right time for actions such as this.
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