The government U-turn today (Tuesday) on the planned and agreed roll-out of statutory sick leave is both a mistake and short-sighted.
Commenting on the decision, our General Secretary Owen Reidy said:
“This is an appalling decision which will affect the lowest paid and the most vulnerable workers in our economy. Many of the people affected by this are the same workers that were being lauded by government as essential workers during Covid-19.
"The pandemic highlighted the glaring discrepancy whereby Ireland, a wealthy country, was out of line in comparison to nearly all European countries in not provided a modest and basic amount of paid sick leave. Recent survey research from the Industrial Relations News found that the vast majority of firms saw little or no impact from the previous rise to 5 sick days.”
Our social policy officer, Dr Laura Bambrick added:
“Government's response to Trump’s tariffs should be focused on protecting household spending going into our local economies and small businesses. In taking money out of the pockets of sick workers without a company sick scheme to fall back on, this decision does exactly the opposite.
"Today’s U-turn benefits all employers, regardless of whether they are impacted by tariffs or whether they are a profitable business or struggling. The sick leave legislation includes an inability-to-pay clause that protects both sick workers and struggling businesses. Government could have looked to relax this clause, but instead they went for the nuclear option.”
Mr Reidy concluded:
“We engage with government and the employers through the LEEF (Labour Employer Economic Forum) and want to see if can we work together to ensure there is a level of cohesion in addressing tariffs and other threats from the Trump administration. But for this to be viable and credible, government cannot start to row back on basic but essential progressive measures in the interests of wider society. The government have clearly stumbled at the first hurdle and if this is the new approach the signs look ominous.”
