The Oireachtas Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment has approved the Statutory Sick Pay Scheme.
This scheme has not come into place yet, but Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has stated that he aims to “bring forward the final Bill as soon as possible.”
The committee has recommended that all employees receive the legal right to statutory sick pay to ensure employees on all forms of employment contracts receive the same protections. The committee is recommending that some form of rebate for the cost of medical certification should be made available to ease the financial burden on employees, particularly those on lower incomes. The committee is also calling for businesses to be given an exemption from the sick pay requirement if they can demonstrate to the Labour Court that they cannot genuinely afford to make the payment.