Bruton argues against Burton sick pay plans

MINISTER FOR Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton argued strongly against Labour Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton’s sick pay proposals at a special Fine Gael meeting on budgetary matters yesterday.

Mr Bruton told parliamentary party colleagues there was little reason to expect that requiring employers to provide sickness payments during the first four weeks of a claim would bring about a reduction in welfare dependency.

“Bearing in mind that the gains in improved management of sick absences would be at best small, this would be a substantial financial and compliance cost to impose on such companies. Even as a revenue raising exercise, it would be very inefficient,” he said.

Ahead of last December’s budget, Ms Burton was forced to abandon her proposal to help cut the State’s almost €1 billion annual bill for sick pay because of opposition from Fine Gael.

She renewed her appeal when it emerged an IMF staff report last month highlighted that Ireland was out of line with other countries in relation to sick pay and expressed support for reform of sick leave practices, “by requiring employers to pay for the first two to four weeks of illness”.

Mr Bruton told colleagues the proposed scheme would have a “particularly severe” impact on small businesses as most small businesses did not have a sick pay scheme in operation.

He said while a large employer with a well-established sick pay scheme would also “suffer a financial cost as a result of the introduction of the proposed scheme”, small employers would face “multiple impacts”.