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A sickening thought — 11 Comments

  1.  

    'Cost to the taxpayer' is an old chestnut normally used by the lazy politicos to keep the sheeple in line with some fabricated form of secret guilt. It's a variation of that other chestnut, 'a burden on the State.' 

     

    However, it might be judicious to point out that payment for sick days does not exist in most of the private sector …….. just saying!

    • Payment for sick days might not exist in Ireland, but it does in the UK

      https://www.gov.uk/statutory-sick-pay/overview

      Theroetically we pay our staff for the first four days before SSP cuts in, and I think that the SSP is actually claimed back from the Government through reduced NI payments.

      In practice, we pay all our staff in full for the few days they take off sick (not worth the extra admin, and they don't swing the lead), with one exception. This year, one staff member has taken five times the sick days off of the other dozen staff combined, so goes straight on to SSP.

      • As far as I am aware the public sector [which is the subject of the report] provides a number of uncertified sick days [usually around five] per year which are included in the salary conditions.  Certified sick leave is also paid on full salary up to something like six months, after which the salary is reduced considerably.

    • If we are talking about the private sector then the entire "cost" of sick leave falls to the owners of the business in lost productivity.  If a person takes too many days off then it is presumably at the employer's discretion to replace him [or her] with a healthier individual?

      • Also government pay sick to all who don’t get paid by their company. Gov also pay companies that do pay sick leave.

        • So as here the 'taxpayer' funds the 'sickies' in more ways than one and the 'cost to government' is zero as the government.

      • Aha! The private sector employer has the discretion to replace the perennial sickie but public servants, (in Ireland), cannot be fired for being sick. In my own experience in the private sector, it was rare to be out sick and when it did happen, it was for a day or two at most, (hospital procedures excluded). The worry was that with the best willin the world, your boss would get impatient and begin to consider a replacement. Once this mental process even began, your job was under threat. If you were out then you had the added worry of work piling up in your absence and that had to be done by you when you got back. As such, sick days were rarely even an issue in my day.Perhaps this has all changed?

        • In the private sector there is indeed a cost to the public purse, as Benefits may have to be paid out.  However in the public sector either the person gets paid sick leave OR social welfare, therefore there is no additional cost.

          Personally I only worked in the private sector for a short time [a couple of years back in the Seventies] so I can't really comment on the current setup there.

    • Hah!  That is spot on.  If I knew what comany he represented, I'd damn near apply for a job there.

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