New certified sick leave arrangements are now expected to come into force for most public servants in March 2014, after the Labour Court issued its recommendation on outstanding issues last December. The new arrangements will apply in schools and colleges from the start of the 2014-2015 school year.

The Labour Court recommendation dealt with the criteria for determining when an illness is critical in cases of pregnancy-related illness, disability and mental health.

The Court backed union arguments that staff with pregnancy-related illnesses should not be dependent on management discretion to define the illness as critical. It said pregnancy-related illnesses that require two or more days of in-patient care in a hospital or clinic should automatically be defined as critical. This also applies to assisted pregnancy-related conditions.

The Court agreed with the assessment of the civil service chief medical officer, who said that not all disability-related conditions were critical. But it said the draft critical illness protocol, which has been drawn up in talks between unions and management, should explicitly confirm that extended paid leave is available in cases of serious disability-related illnesses - even if they don’t meet strict medical criteria set out in the protocol. It also said management must take reasonable steps to help staff with disability-related illnesses to return to work.

Finally, the recommendation rejected arguments that all mental illnesses should be defined as critical. The Court said staff with critical mental illnesses would “automatically” have access to extended sick leave, and that there was management discretion to extend this to cases that did not meet the specific criteria. It therefore recommended no change to the draft critical illness protocol on this issue.

Paid leave

The distinction between critical and non-critical conditions is important because, in future, paid leave for non-critical illnesses will be halved to three months on full pay, followed by three months on half pay in any four-year period. IMPACT and other unions have ensured that current arrangements – six months on full pay, followed by six months on half pay – will remain in cases of critical illness.

The draft protocol on critical illness will now be amended to take account of the Labour Court recommendation. Details of other aspects of the critical illness protocol, which has been the subject of negotiations between management and unions for some months, were reported in previous IMPACT bulletins.

The changes to certified sickness arrangements come on foot of a 2012 Labour Court recommendation, where IMPACT and other unions successfully argued against management proposals to cut paid certified leave in all cases, including cases of critical illness. The union also successfully resisted management plans to limit the arrangement to a single critical illness or serious injury in a public servant’s career, and ensured that existing schemes for occupational illnesses or injuries will remain unchanged.

IMPACT has also confirmed that, although sick leave taken over the last four years will be taken into account when calculating eligibility for paid leave, a one-year ‘look back’ mechanism, which is advantageous to staff, will remain in place.

Significant changes to uncertified sick leave have already been introduced under the Croke Park agreement.