I am sympathetic to the point the Deputies are making. Deputy Bruton from my party spoke in favour of this change earlier as well. In particular, when we are saying that it has to be certified, there is an argument for saying that the right should kick in at an earlier stage. At the same time, I am sensitive to the fact that there are employers who take people on seasonally, perhaps for just a short period of three to five or six weeks over the summer. If they found that they spent half of that time paying somebody…

I move amendment No. 6: In page 5, line 30, to delete “An employee’s entitlement” and substitute “Subject to subsection (7) , an employee’s entitlement”. We have covered the intention behind amendments Nos. 6 and 7 as well.

I move amendment No. 7: In page 5, between lines 35 and 36, to insert the following: “(7) For the purposes of this section, where an employee ceases to be the employee of an employer and, not more than 26 weeks after the date of cesser, the employee again becomes the employee of the employer, the period of service of that employee with that employer before the date of cesser shall be deemed to be continuous with the period of service of that employee with that employer after again becoming such employee.”.

Amendments Nos. 11, 13 and 14 would disrupt the balance in the Bill that protects the rights and obligations of both employers and employees. This is a progressive Bill and will ensure that all employees will have financial protection from day one of a medically certified absence. However, the Government does not want to jeopardise jobs by placing an unsustainable cost and administrative burden on business. The introduction of a statutory sick pay scheme must be balanced with the need to ensure the viability of the…

Section 6 provides that the first ministerial order made under the Bill will not reduce the number of statutory sick leave days. Subsection (2)(a)(i) provides that no ministerial order will reduce the number of statutory sick leave days below three. This means that once the Bill is enacted and commenced, the number of statutory sick leave days can never go below three. The effect of the amendment would be that the number of sick leave days provided could never be reduced. I have set out the four-year plan and there…

Section 6 provides that the Minister will not make an order adjusting the number of statutory sick leave days under the Bill until 12 months after its enactment, and that a period of 12 months must pass between each subsequent adjustment. This amendment would remove that provision and place no restrictions on how often the number of sick leave days could be changed. Limiting adjustments to once every 12 months provides both employers and employees with a degree of certainty around their obligations, entitlements an…

It is not agreed.

I thank the Deputies. I know some stakeholders believe the rate of payment and an earnings cap should be set in the Bill itself. I do not agree with that. Setting the rates by ministerial order allows for greater flexibility and will allow the rate to be revised as necessary in line with inflation, changing incomes and, indeed, changing politics. For example, the national minimum wage is regularly adjusted by ministerial order. Similarly, the method of calculation for payments in respect of annual leave and public …

I move amendments Nos. 30 and 32-----

You would think I would know by now, being here as long as I have. My apologies.

I move amendment No. 30: In page 11, line 22, to delete “20 weeks’” and substitute “4 weeks’”. These amendments amend the maximum penalty the Workplace Relations Commission or Labour Court may award if an employer breaches obligations under the Bill. That now moves from 20 weeks' remuneration to four weeks' remuneration. This will bring the penalty more into line with the protections afforded to other types of leave, where the level of penalty is approximately in line with the duration of the leave concerned. On Co…

These things amount to a judgment call. My original view was the same as the Deputies in that it should be 20 weeks' remuneration but having taken advice, in particular legal advice, and heard the views of many others, we had to try to make sure the penalty was proportionate to the offence. When we looked across other legislation, for example, paternity leave, when the entitlement was two weeks' paternity leave, the penalty was two weeks. It was, in essence, 100%. If the person was not given two weeks' paternity be…

To be clear, it is not that the legal advice is that the provision is not constitutional or we could not do it. It is that when we are drafting legislation, we should try to make sure that penalties are proportionate to the offence. That is a basic principle of justice. A more severe offence has a bigger penalty. As things stand, it is two weeks' entitlement and two weeks' penalty in respect of paternity leave. What we originally proposed for sick pay was ten days' entitlement and 20 weeks' penalty, which appeared …

There can be no doubt that rents are too high in Ireland and that far too many people have to spend too much of their income on rent, often at the expense of other things such as saving to buy a house, paying into a pension fund or investing in their education or that of their children. It is a dual crisis; one of affordability and availability. Sometimes when you try to improve one of those things you can make the other worse. That is why we need to be careful about the policy interventions the Government makes. O…

This Government has been in office for just over two years.

That is a fact and I can give the Deputy some more facts in a moment. This Government has been in office for just over two years. The party I lead has been in office for about 11 years. No party has been in government on this island longer than Deputy Doherty's party in the past 20 years. Sinn Féin has been in government in Northern Ireland for most of the past 20 years. I am very happy to compare our record in government over the past ten years with that of the Deputy's party. His is the party that increased rents…

His was the party to increase the pension age in Northern Ireland.

Any time I tell him a few home truths about his party's record in government-----

-----in Northern Ireland, he loses the rag-----

----because he does not want people to know the truth.