Do we have a sick note culture in Ireland?

Do Irish people call in sick too easily to work and use sick notes as an excuse to cover for their impromptu days off?

With British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak calling for an end to the ‘sick note culture’, it has sparked a debate among Irish people whether or not there is a similar culture in Ireland.

PM Sunak is calling for the implementation of specialist ‘work and health professionals’ in order to move assessment powers to them to decide where a person is fit to work or not.

“I don’t think we have a sick note culture in Ireland, but many people would say it is very easy to get a sick note if you want one,” said John Barry, Member of the ISME National Council and Director of MSS, The HR People. 

“In fairness to a doctor, if someone comes in and says they woke up really stressed this morning or ‘my back is killing me’, there’s very little they can do,” Mr Barry said.

So while there is a ‘severe’ shortage of GP’s in Ireland and Irish people are able to acquire sick notes without even meeting a doctor face to face, the argument in Britain is that employees seem to be ‘over-medicalising the everyday challenges and worries of life’. 

“The expression of over-medicalising is possibly reflecting the fact that people now and young people don’t experience the same stresses as they did in the past and they should be learning as they are growing up how to deal with stress,” Mr Barry continued.

However, the counterargument to this was brought by Laura Bambrick, Head of Social Policy and Employment Affairs at ICTU, who said: “People with mental health conditions live amongst us and work amongst us - that’s always been there. 

“This idea that younger workers and younger people are more prone to health conditions… the evidence doesn’t stand up for that”, Ms Bambrick said. 

She continued to say that the idea that the younger generation has “lived this privileged life” is ‘untrue’ and that “the foundations of good health: access to housing, stable incomes, are on shaky ground”.

One person reacted to the debate online with a similar standpoint, saying: “Rather than railing against a ‘sick note’ culture, we must be encouraging more openness and understanding around mental health.”

The average figure per working person for sick leave is approximately six days per person, per year, which averages about 12 million sick days in Ireland, according to Mr Barry.