Irish government modify sick pay as coronavirus engulfs tourism

Thursday, March 12, 2020

The workers of the private sector affected by coronavirus will receive a new weekly higher level of sick pay of €305 from their first day of illness. This was an up from €203, under a new €2.4 billion initiative decalred by the government.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar explained that current situations surrounding sick payments like having a set number of social insurance contributions would be put aside or waived off. Payments will also be available to the self-employed.

He explained that the existing requirement under which claimants had to hang around until the sixth day of their infection to acquire that sick benefit would no longer be applicable so the payment would be received right away.

He said, “The whole objective here is to ensure that workers would not be afraid to follow advice to self-isolate due to economic necessity.”

In the Dail next week, emergency legislation will be introduced, and the government is all set to make the new sick pay arrangements become applicable from the decision of the Cabinet subcommittee to introduce the new measures.

To control the coronavirus transmission, the personal rate of illness benefit will be raised from €203 per week to €305 per week for two weeks maximum of medically certified self-isolation, or for the duration of medically certified absence of the person from work due to coronavirus diagnoses.

For private-sector workers, the new financial package comes by due to the trade unions and employer’s strong representations to the government. The government had by now come to a decision last week that state employees would receive special leave with pay if they had to self-isolate in line with Health Service Executive advice and where flexible working arrangements were not possible.

In the meantime, thousands of tourism jobs are facing danger across Ireland as people from foreign countries booking holidays has dried up to a “trickle” because of the spread of the coronavirus, according to hoteliers and industry representatives.

In a bid to limit losses, some hotels are trying to fill empty rooms and restaurants by offering discounted rates to domestic tourists.

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