{"id":75146,"date":"2025-10-12T04:38:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T04:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/75146\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T04:38:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T04:38:09","slug":"ireland-is-one-of-just-six-nations-that-exclude-the-self-employed-from-sickness-benefit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/75146\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland is one of just six nations that exclude the self-employed from sickness benefit"},"content":{"rendered":"

The analysis of 36 OECD countries found that Ireland is one of just six nations that exclude the self-employed from sickness benefits. Ireland introduced statutory paid sick leave in 2023 in addition to the existing sickness benefit scheme.<\/p>\n

With a doctor\u2019s note, up to five days of paid sick leave per year are provided with no waiting period, paid at 70pc of the daily wage, and capped at \u20ac110 per day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the introduction of paid sick leave, the previous three-day waiting period for sickness benefits is now covered, providing better protection for short-term illness,\u201d said Dr Jinwoo Lee, author of the study.<\/p>\n

\u201cCompared to many OECD countries where replacement rates are close to 100pc, Ireland\u2019s 70pc rate remains relatively modest,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Dr Lee described Ireland\u2019s reforms as \u201cvery encouraging\u201d but said there is still room for improvement.<\/p>\n

\u201cOut of 36 OECD countries, excluding Korea and the United States, a majority \u2014 24 \u2014 make coverage compulsory for the self-employed, while six allow voluntary enrolment, and another six exclude the self-employed entirely. Ireland falls into the latter category, excluding the self-employed from coverage,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Stock<\/p>\n

Stock image<\/p>\n

Today’s News in 90 Seconds, Sunday, October 12 <\/p>\n

Ireland, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom are six countries where self-employed workers cannot enroll. Among these, Switzerland and the United Kingdom provide only statutory paid sick leave, making coverage unavailable for the self-employed. Canada, the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, Sweden, and the Netherlands allow voluntary enrolment for the self-employed.<\/p>\n

The study noted that during the pandemic, countries such as Finland, Norway, Sweden and Canada expanded paid sick leave to cover self-employed and freelance workers and ensured it was available from the first day of illness.<\/p>\n

In Ireland, Dr Lee added, part-time workers must earn at least \u20ac39 per week and have two years of prior contributions to qualify for sickness benefits \u2014 a high threshold compared to other OECD countries. Under international labour standards, the minimum benefit duration is 26 weeks. Dr Lee said only three OECD countries \u2014 Israel, Canada and Lithuania \u2014 fall short of this standard.<\/p>\n

The study, published in the Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine, said the Covid-19 pandemic had underscored the importance of paid sick leave and driven a global movement to strengthen protections for workers.<\/p>\n

Dr Lee said: \u201cWhen looking at income replacement levels, Ireland, along with the UK, Canada, and Portugal, provides less than 45pc of prior earnings by the second week of sickness.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The analysis of 36 OECD countries found that Ireland is one of just six nations that exclude the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75147,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43,29711],"class_list":["post-75146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-oecd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}