Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 18 April 2023
489. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the number of Departmental staff currently on sick or stress leave; and the number who took stress or sick leave in each of the past five years, and to date in 2023, in tabular form. [17776/23]
View answerMy Department is committed to providing efficient and well-managed services and achieves this by striking a satisfactory balance between the delivery of the business needs and high quality service to the public and the need to allow civil servants to address their health and safety needs during periods of illness. The Department manages absences on health grounds in line with relevant legislation and civil service circulars, policies and guidelines. All civil servants have a responsibility to the organisation of which they are part of, to their colleagues and to themselves to attend work and provide effective service.
While an employee can inform their employer of the nature of their health conditions insofar as it can affect their ability to carry out their work in a safe manner, they do have the right not to disclose the nature of their illness and as such I cannot report accurately on the number of staff on sick leave due to stress or other specified illnesses.
Our systems bulk reports sick leave by the number of instances and days rather than the number of staff on sick leave, as staff can have multiple absences over the course of a given year.
The table below provides data on the number of staff in the Department, the total number of instances and days of sick leave, and the average respectively per person for the years in question.
|
Year |
Headcount |
No. of Days |
Average days per person |
No. of Instances |
Average Instances per person |
|
2018 |
910 |
8095 |
8.90 |
1198 |
1.32 |
|
2019 |
915 |
7838 |
8.57 |
1289 |
1.41 |
|
2020 |
921 |
4096 |
5.53 |
506 |
0.55 |
|
2021 |
972 |
3911 |
4.02 |
449 |
0.46 |
|
2022 |
977 |
5284 |
5.41 |
654 |
0.67 |
|
2023 to date |
974 |
932 |
0.96 |
181 |
0.18 |
