All over Ireland many low paid workers are being driven further into poverty.  Unscrupulous Employers the length and breath of the country are exploiting a loop hole in the Statutory Sick Scheme 2022 to thwart the legislation and so deny the workers their statutory income when they are sick. Many employees have no option but to come to work sick, or leave their families without the necessities.   More than 50% of the Irish work force is made up of low income workers.

The same employers are claiming their policies are better, have a period of waiting days, which reset with every absence.  So with a 5 day waiting period an individual sick for 3 days in February with a cold, must provide a medical certificate at the cost of E50 gets no pay for the days they were absent. Nine months later that same individual needs to have eye surgery an out patient procedure, they are advised to remain at home for a day. Once again they receive no pay for the two days and need to provide a medical cert.

If it was employers intention was to be "generous" to the employee then they would simply  abide by the law and build upon it. Not reduce their employees rights by claiming less is more in the long run. The problem has grown since January 2024, the Department of Social Welfare will pay no illness benefit until the 5 days the employers are mandated by law to pay have expired. This problem can only be exacerbated in January 2025 with the increase in the sick days allowance.

There can be no doubt that the intention of the legislation was to bring the Irish worker a little more inline with the protections enjoyed by other EU countries. Simple complaints, a clear  breach of the workers rights brought before the WRC take at least 6 months to resolve, require an enormous amount of correspondence and so are very time consuming, a system that is hardly leaning into  the concerns of the working poor.

THE AVERAGE IRISH WORKER PAYS:       INCOME TAX 20 TO 40%,  PRSI 4%,  VAT 23%, MOTOR TAX  E180 TO E350 DEPENDING ON THE VEHICLE,        PROPERTY TAX,                                      STAMP DUTY.

THE AVERAGE CORPORATION IN IRELAND PAYS 12.5% ON TRADING INCOME AND 25% ON NON TRADING INCOME

According to the CSO in 2023 Income taxes of €31 billion are almost a third of the total. Value Added Tax (VAT) was the next largest tax revenue, with almost €19 billion collected in 2022. Corporation tax revenues were €23 billion and there was €20 billion received from PRSI and other social contributions.  

CLEARLY WE ARE PAYING MORE THAN OUR FAIR SHARE WE NEED THE Tánaiste Micheál Martin TD TO PLUG THIS LOOPHOLE IMMEDIATELY.