Vol. 525 No. 3
183 Mr. Broughan asked the Minister for Defence if he will have arrangements made to restore sick pay to an employee of his Department (details supplied) who is currently ill following serious injuries from a traffic accident and whose pay has been stopped until further notice and who was wrongly given holiday pay. [25136/00]
This Department operates a sick pay scheme which is designed to protect employees to a certain extent against loss of earnings which may occur if they are unavoidably absent from work due to illness. It is a requirement of the scheme that all claims for payment of social welfare disability benefit must be forwarded, in the first instance, to this Department for onward transmission to the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs.
In the case under reference, the employee concerned has been absent on sick leave since 14 August 2000 and he was removed from the benefits of the sick pay scheme with effect from 13 September 2000 because of his repeated failure to comply with the above instructions, during the course of his present absence from duty.
The employee concerned met with two officials of my Department on Friday, 25 October 2000, at which the question of restoring the benefits of the departmental sick pay scheme to him was discussed. At the meeting, the employee gave a verbal undertaking to comply in future with the terms of the departmental sick pay scheme. The officials from my Department agreed to review the matter, when the employee has clearly demonstrated that he is prepared to comply in future with the terms of the sick pay scheme and with the procedures for claiming sick pay entitlement.
