Hmmm very good point answers on a post card please !!

To replace them with who exactly. Michael “order a report” Martin or Gerry “I need a map” Adams.

yawn…concentrate on the issue please

Hya Tim I see that you are at it again. I thought your Party or cadre told you to stay off this site as it was making it uncomfortable for them?

Get sick, don’t get paid, so go to work, rest of office gets sick, start of long drawn out drop in productivity due to cycle of illness, business suffers.

Just to note its ‘you’re’ a shortened ‘you are’. Your is possessive.

Ill thought out remarks there Clive (excuse the pun). Unless you’re fine with somebody with flu coming to work because they simply cannot afford to stay at home, and working alongside your pregnant wife.

From the way you lads are talking, it’s a wonder the private sector gets any work done at all with the no doubt rampant spread of illness. If you’re so ill you can’t work, you should stay at home. If you’re well enough to do your job, you should come in. At any rate, if you’re not in working, you shouldn’t get paid.

So if you’re legitimately sick (its life, it happens to us all) you should stay home and not get paid? No thanks. I’d drag my infectious self to the office and show all my colleagues how dedicated I am.

In the real world, (where you don’t get paid for your sick days) that doesn’t happen. If you’re genuinely that sick, you won’t be able to make it to work. You threatening to come in and infect the office is just the throwing of your rhetorical rattle out of the pram. Private sector workers don’t get paid for their sick days and they manage to be more productive than their public sector counterparts and avoid serious workplace contagion. The facts stand against keeping the cosseted arrangement which the public sector currently enjoy.

Ha – the real world – I was wondering how long it would be before someone trotted out that tired old cliche. Maybe you can write up something about ripping up croke park to complete the cliche set. There might be a prize! The fact that some businesses decide not to cover their employees sick leave is terrible. People get sick occasionally and should not be out of pocket for it. Employers who advocate that sort of thing are pushing a greedy race to the bottom agenda. I wouldn’t be surprised if those same employers were for abolition of minimum wage so they could exploit people further. I’m hopeful that those type of people are in a minority. So if you had / have a pregnant wife and due to financial constraints her flu ridden co worker came in, you could understand that? Or should he/ she not be incentivised to remain at home to beat the illness in isolation? People who abuse sick leave should be repremanded or fired.

Right, I’ll start by pointing out that your first couple of lines isn’t an argument; it’s ridiculing about how I phrased mine.

In regards to your comments about a race to the bottom, having to pay up to 4 weeks worth of sick pay as well as paying for a replacement is a significant burden for an SME. It’s clear that in jobs where sick leave is paid, employees are vastly more inclined to take time off. This is supported by the figures released by the government, which showed public sector workers taking two to three times more sick leave than their private sector counterparts. This would create a serious disincentive to employ workers with medical conditions or health issues which would run counter to what the bill wants to encourage.

As to the rest of your argument, it’s a fallacious argument known as a false dilemma. Anyone who genuinely has the flu or another serious illness will not be well enough to make the commute to work, nor will they want to, so it’s completely unrealistic to pose an argument where they’re suddenly in the workplace.

Hi kev, yes I was ridiculing your opening gambit but that is only because it was such a cliche. So I apologise for that but im sick to death of the constant haranguing of the ps especially in unimaginative phraseology . I firmly believe that people should get sick leave. I also believe that people who abuse it should be (and many are) subject to disciplinary measures. New businesses and very smes should be exempt as its not financially viable for them. We know what they say about stats now don’t we? Personally speaking, I and the small team I work on have not taken sick leave in 2 years as we’ve not been sick so why should the people who stick to the rules be punished. And yes, if it came to a choice between getting a lift to work in order to not be behind on my mortgage or miss a bill then, yes, see you in the office. Some people cannot afford to miss work or go to the doctor for that matter.

It would be a liability for SMEs. It would mean having to pay the employee and their replacement for up to a month. That’s a pretty crippling burden for companies who’re already to the pin of their collar. It would also be a disincentive to hire people who have health conditions.

No it won’t make us like the rest of Europe. This idea of Minister Burton is to oppose regulations on the private sector similar to the a Public whereby the payment of sick pay is mandatory. That is the problem and it does nothing to deal with the incompetence of Public Sector Managers who preside over wholesale theft of employers monies by taking time off with the pretence of illness. Minister Bruton is entirely correct. Deal with that before levying more costs on the private sector unless you want more people on the dole.

Burton’s idea is to bring Irish sick pay arrangements into line with other European states, and is backed by, of all people, the IMF.
Gullible people are buying into Bruton’s cynical nonsense about a ‘disincentive to employment’. The absurdity here is that any obligation on employers, justified or not, is dismissed a disincentive to employment. No one is allowed to challenge the dogma of job creation because anything that approaches social responsibility to employment is ‘a liability’ for our precious, already cosseted SMEs.

As reported by thejournal– http://www.thejournal.ie/sick-pay-joan-burton-richard-bruton-imf-illness-benefit-491082-Jun2012/: The IMF’s most recent staff report revisited the topic, suggesting Ireland’s arrangements exposed the government to greater liabilities than others, and appeared to back Burton’s drive to reduce the burden.
… Bruton pointed to OECD data showing that Ireland was “completely out of line” in its sick pay system

Actually Culm the business of Cabinet is and always was governed under the Official Secrets Act. Boo to you!

And many thousands of Irish people currently have interest only mortgages. In the past these were granted where the price of property was accelerating. Nowadays they are given where people are struggling to pay