Peter Burke

The Sick Leave Act 2022 introduced a statutory right to paid sick leave for the first time and was meant to be phased in from 2023 to 2026.

Employees are currently entitled to up to five days’ employer-paid sick leave in a year, paid at 70 per cent of gross salary up to a cap of €110 per day. This was set to be increased to seven days from 2025 and finally to 10 days in 2026.

However, enterprise, tourism and employment minister Peter Burke yesterday announced this would no longer be the case.

Mr Burke said that “business owners and representative organisations, particularly in the retail and hospitality sectors, have consistently raised concerns about the cumulative impact of such regulatory measures in light of rising labour, input and energy costs”.

He continued: “Five days’ sick leave strikes the right balance. It gives workers income protection for five days, after which illness benefit is there to support them.”

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) condemned the decision as a mistake and short-sighted.

ICTU 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 five sick days.”

Dr Laura Bambrick, ICTU’s social policy officer, 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.”