Sick note for Council staff

Staff at Galway City Council take more sick leave than most local authorities in the country.

And the latest government statistics on local authority staff taking sick-days, shows City Council staff take marginally more sick leave than Galway County Council employees.

Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government, Simon Coveney, revealed that the percentage of paid working days lost to medically certified sickness absence at Galway City Council was 4.58%.

This is the sixth highest compared with the other 31 local authorities in the survey.

Only South Dublin County Council (5.2%), Louth County Council (4.74%), Leitrim County Council (5.2%), Kildare County Council (4.61%), and Longford County Council (4.73%) had higher sick leave absenteeism than Galway City Council.

Galway County Council had a sick leave rate of 4.02%, which was lower than the City Council but still higher than 20 other local authorities around the country.

There percentage of paid working days lost to self-certified sickness absence was 0.33% in Galway City Council and 0.31% in Galway County Council.

The figures relate to 2015.

Nationally, according to the public service sick leave statistics, the rate of sick leave across the public service has fallen below 4% for the first time.

Government claims this shows the “ongoing positive impact” the new sick leave scheme is having on public service productivity.

Since the introduction of the Public Service Sick Leave Scheme, the rate of sick leave has fallen by 0.4% to 3.9%, and the number of days lost to sick leave has fallen by one to eight and a half.

The total cost of sick leave across the public service is now €317.9 million, which represents a cumulative saving of €104.4 million since 2013.

Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Paschal Donohoe, said: “While there has been a significant improvement since the reform, the rates of sick leave in areas of the public service remain high and need to be reduced further. To achieve this, management in each of the sectors must focus on the proactive management of absenteeism, and policies designed to assist employers in managing cases of prolonged or frequent absence proactively will be required.”