Sick leave in the civil service

The administrative arrangements for the Civil Service are set out in circular 12/2023 and must be read in conjunction with the regulations.

Under the Public Service Sick Leave Scheme, you are entitled to the following payment if you are absent from work due to illness or injury:

• A maximum of 92 days on full pay in a rolling one-year period
• Followed by a maximum of 91 days on half pay in a rolling one-year period
• Subject to a maximum of 183 days paid sick leave in a rolling four-year period

Employee’s responsibility

As an employee, you must contact your line manager by phone before 10am to say you will be absent due to illness (shift workers should give at least one hour’s notice before the start of the shift). Your manager will then notify the NSSO by submitting an online absence form through HR self-service.

You and your manager will then receive automatic email notifications to confirm that the NSSO has received the information.

You must submit all supporting documentation (for example: doctor certificates) to the NSSO. For information about how to submit your certs, or for any query about using the online system, consult this how-to guide.

On returning to work, you need to fill out a section of the resumption of work form on HR self-service and submit it to your manager for completion. Your clock may not be updated until the NSSO receives this form.

Your local time and attendance system will be updated following arrangements between the NSSO and your department or office. You must have an approved resumption of work form to update the HRMS system.

Note: The NSSO monitors self-certified sick leave and long-term absences. Appropriate measures will be taken if there is excessive absenteeism.

Manager’s responsibility

When a staff member advises you that they are sick and unable to come to work, you are responsible for notifying the NSSO, preferably by using an online absence form on the manager section of HR self-service.

If a staff member does not contact you about their absence, you should try to contact them. If you are unable to do so, then you should contact their next of kin before the end of the second day of their unauthorised absence. If you don’t have the employee’s contact details, then you should bring their absence to the attention of your local HR unit and ask them to contact the employee.

You and the staff member will receive an automatic email notification to confirm that the NSSO has received the absence information.

When the staff member returns to work, they must fill out their section of the resumption of work form and submit it to you for completion. You will have a ‘return to work’ conversation with your staff member, if required, and submit the form to the NSSO.

The staff member’s time and attendance system will be updated as per arrangements made between the NSSO and their department or office.

If you need help in using the online system, consult this how-to guide.

You need to have a medical cert from a medical practitioner where your sick leave is recorded as a certified absence, no matter how long it lasts. All illnesses longer than two consecutive working days, or where an illness includes both Friday and Monday, require a medical cert.

Medical certification

Medical certificates must, in all cases of continuous sick leave of three days or more, be provided to either the local HR Unit or NSSO as soon as possible, but not later than one week after the absence commences. In general, medical certificates should not cover periods of longer than one week, but may be accepted for longer periods at the discretion of the HR Unit who may instruct NSSO accordingly

Please see the ‘employee’s responsibility’ section above to find out what details you need to provide.

Illness Benefit certification

Where a civil servant is eligible for Illness Benefit, they must apply to the Department of Social Protection and mandate any IB payment back to their employer. Illness Benefit certificates (IB1 form) are obtained from your doctor.

To apply for sick leave, a civil servant must inform their line manager of the illness verbally as early as possible on the first day, normally within one hour of their usual starting time. Your manager will then notify HR Services using an online absence form submitted through HR self-service.

Medical cert

As per the sick leave regulations, all civil servants need to send their doctor’s medical certs to the NSSO on a weekly basis.

Updated Illness Benefit process

With each medical cert sent to HR Services, as per the sick leave regulations if you are subject to Class A PRSI, you also need to confirm that you:

• have submitted a claim form for Illness Benefit (IB1)
• have requested that the Illness Benefit be mandated to your employer in full

Recent changes to the Statutory Sick Leave provisions have resulted in changes to the Illness Benefit application process and when Illness Benefit is paid.

From the 1st January 2024, Illness Benefit will not be paid by the Department of Social Protection for the first 5 days of an illness in a calendar year.

Under the Sick Leave Act 2022, employers such as the Civil Service, who run a sick leave scheme which is more beneficial for employees than the Statutory Sick Leave scheme, are not required to provide Statutory Sick Leave in addition to this.

The 5 days of statutory sick leave is not paid in addition to the entitlements set out in the Public Service Sick Leave scheme. However, the legislation provides that both statutory sick leave employees and employees covered by more beneficial schemes (Public Service Sick Leave scheme) are treated the same in terms of access to Illness Benefits.

Any claims made after the exhaustion of the statutory sick leave / the employer equivalent are subject to the usual 3 day waiting period and applied for in from day 4 onward.

Process for first 5 days of illness in a calendar year

For the first 5 days only of an illness in each calendar year you are not required to apply for Illness Benefit.

Scenario 1: You become sick for the first time in the calendar year and are sick for 6 calendar days. For the first 5 days you are not eligible to apply for illness benefit but must apply for the remaining 1 day. Note: Illness Benefit does not pay for Sundays.

If your first instance of illness in the year is less than 5 days, the remaining days will be applied to any subsequent instance(s) of illness, up to a maximum of 5 days in a calendar year.

Once your 5 days has been reached, you must apply to the Department of Social Protection (DSP) for a payment called Illness Benefit.

Scenario 2: You become sick for a second time in the calendar year, after availing of 1 sick day previously and are sick for longer than 4 days in your second instance. For the first 4 days you are not eligible to apply for Illness Benefit but must apply for Illness Benefit from day 5 onward. Note: Illness Benefit does not pay for Sundays.

Process after the first 5 days of sick leave

After your first 5 calendar days of sick leave have been reached in a calendar year the following process should be followed for Illness Benefit applications thereafter.

If you are off work sick for more than 3 days you must apply to the Department of Social Protection (DSP) for Illness Benefit and mandate it to your employer.

Your Illness Benefit starts from day 4 for each period of illness for the remainder of the calendar year.

Scenario 3: You have exhausted your first 5 days of sick leave in the calendar year and become ill again in the same calendar year. You must apply for Illness Benefit after day 3, as your benefit for the remainder of the calendar year begins on day 4.

Process for officers who have less than 13 weeks of service

If you have less than 13 weeks of service with your employer but have sufficient contributions to qualify for Illness Benefit, you must apply for the benefit from day 4 for each period of illness for the full calendar year as the Statutory Sick Pay Act does not apply to you.

You can apply for Illness Benefit through www.mywelfare.ie if your GP has provided a medical certificate, or you can request an Illness Benefit form from your GP, manually complete the form and post it to Social Welfare Services, PO Box 1650, D01 WY03.

The template below can be included in the email when sending your medical certs or it can be printed and sent in hard copy form to Social Welfare Services, PO Box 1650, D01 WY03.

I, ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­______________________________________________(PPSN:________________), hereby confirm that I have sent completed Illness Benefit Forms, properly mandated to my employer to the Department of Social Protection for my Sick Leave Absence of ___/____/20___.

You can submit your certs in one of two ways, as a scanned PDF or as a photo:

• Snap and send

Take a photo of the cert on your smartphone or mobile device and forward it to medcerts@nsso.gov.ie

• Scanned copy

Email a scanned copy to medcerts@nsso.gov.ie

In your email, please include your PPS number and one of the following: date of birth and/or business email address.

Please note that we will check your medical cert to make sure it includes these details:

• Doctor’s full name and signature
• Doctor’s medical council registration number (IMC)
• Doctor or clinic stamp

If the NSSO can’t identify your doctor on the Medical Council register, we will contact you about this.

You can still send hard copies of medical certs by post using a stamped addressed envelope to the following address:

HR Services, National Shared Services Office, Building 5, Belfield Office Park, Beech Hill Road, Clonskeagh, Dublin 4, D04 A9P2.

Please keep the original medical certificate for your own records. You need to include this cover sheet with your documents.

As outlined in the section above, you must fill out a resumption of work online form. If you don’t know how to do this, consult the how-to guide.

If you have a general question on medical and social welfare certificates, or you have a query about your case, you can submit a question on the case management system.

Where you are absent from work due to illness, but don’t visit a doctor, this is self-certified sick leave.

Self-certified sick leave cannot be more than two consecutive days on any one occasion. On returning to work, you must then self-certify that you were unfit to attend work due to illness.

You need a certificate from a medical practitioner if:

• your absence is more than two consecutive working days
• it includes both Friday and Monday, spanning a weekend
• you have exceeded your self-certified sick leave limit which is more than seven days in a rolling 24 months.

Your sick leave record may be examined if you are being considered for promotion, higher scale assignments and transfers between departments.

You will need to contact your line manager by telephone before 10am (or, if you are a shift-worker, at least 1 hour before the start of the shift) to inform them that you will be absent due to illness. Your manager will then notify the NSSO using an online absence form submitted through HR self-service.

Immediately on return to work, you must complete a resumption of work form on your HR self-service containing the self-certification statement of your unfitness for duty. You need to submit this to your manager for completion.

If you have a general question about self-certified sick leave, or you have a query about your case, you can raise a question on the case management system.

You are entitled to take certain health appointments during work hours, but you should try and arrange them outside core time where it’s possible to do so. This section covers what health appointments you are entitled to take.

Please note: Where you are absent due to a health appointment confirmation of the appointment alone is not sufficient. You must have evidence of attendance from the relevant hospital, clinic, or medical practitioner, which you need to submit to the NSSO.

You are entitled to attend antenatal medical appointments during working hours.

When you are applying to have your flexi record reconciled after such appointments, you can claim for the duration of the appointment and the travel time to and from the appointment.

You may be asked to give evidence of your medical appointment.

If you are absent due to attending a doctor/dental/hospital appointment for either a full day or a half-day (either morning or afternoon), this is recorded as sick absence.

If you have attended work before or after the appointment, you can claim time for a sick absence on the following basis:

Morning appointment

If you attend a health appointment in the morning without clocking before 12.30pm, you must claim this as a half day’s sick leave.

If you have attended for a reasonable time (i.e. around one hour) up to 12.30pm, you will receive core time credit if morning attendance has been recorded before or after the absence in question. You must also be clocked in by 1.30 pm to reclaim the credit.

Afternoon appointment

If you attend a health appointment in the afternoon without clocking during the afternoon (up to 5.00pm), you must claim this as a half day’s sick leave.

However, core time credit until 4.00 p.m. will be given provided a reasonable (i.e. around one hour) period of afternoon attendance has been recorded prior to or after the absence in question. You must be clocked in until at least 1.15 pm in order to reclaim the credit.

All-day appointment

If you do not attend work at all during the day of a health appointment, then this is classed as one full day of sick leave. Your manager must report it to the NSSO via their HR self-service.

Civil servants participating in the Living Donor Programme are entitled to attend pre-donation hospital appointments during working hours without loss of pay.

You must notify your line manager of the dates and times of such appointments to be allowed time off from work.

When you are applying to have your flexi record reconciled after such appointments, you may claim for the duration of the appointment and the travel time to and from the appointment.

You may need to give evidence of your medical appointment if requested.

This section lists the acts, regulations, and arrangements for sick leave in the public service and civil service.

The Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) (Amendment) Act 2013 gives the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the power to make regulations that will set out specific details of the new Sick Leave Scheme for the Public Service.

The details of this Scheme are set out in Public Service Management (Sick Leave) Regulations 2014 (S.I 124 of 2014), Public Service Management (Sick Leave) (Amendment) Regulations 2015 (S.I 384 of 2015), Public Service Management (Sick Leave) (Amendment) Regulations 2023 (S.I 407 of 2023) and Circular 12/2023: Management of Sick Leave in the Civil Service.

Amendments to the Public Service Sick Leave Scheme: Frequently Asked Questions

We have developed a helpful video for staff who are on sick leave:

Sometimes, you may need a longer period of sick leave because of a critical illness or serious physical injury.

The critical illness protocol sets out the criteria you must meet to be granted access to critical illness provisions. The occupational physician, or Chief Medical Officer will advise whether, in their opinion, your case meets the following criteria:

You are medically unfit to return to your current duties or (where practicable) modified duties in the same pay grade

The nature of this medical condition has at least one of the following characteristics:

• Acute life-threatening physical illness
• Chronic progressive illness, with well-established potential to reduce life expectancy
• Major physical trauma ordinarily requiring corrective acute operative surgical treatment
• In-patient or day hospital care of ten consecutive days or greater. (For pregnancy-related or assisted pregnancy-related illness, the requirement for hospitalisation of ten consecutive days reduces to two or more consecutive days of in-patient hospital/clinic care.)

In these exceptional circumstances, you can apply for the following:

• A maximum of 183 days on full pay in a rolling one-year period
• Followed by a maximum of 182 days on half pay in a rolling one-year period
• Subject to a maximum of 365 days’ paid sick leave in a rolling four-year period.

If you want to apply for CIP, you must fill out the CIP application form and submit it to your HR manager.

The HR manager in your department or office will decide to grant extended sick leave for a critical illness or serious physical injury. Their decision is based on the CMO’s medical advice.

Supporting information

Letter to Personnel Officers Payment of Travel & Sub for CMO Visits

Circular 22/07: Ill Health Retirement

Circular 01/82: Sick Leave Arising from Accidents on Duty

Department of Finance Office Notice 41/14: Updated Scheme of Flexible Working Hours

If you have exhausted your limits for paid sick leave (i.e. full pay or half pay), you may be able to access a benefit called Temporary Rehabilitation Remuneration (TRR). TRR is an additional payment that is designed to support people recovering from longer-term illness or injury. The rate of TRR is 37.5% of the remuneration you would otherwise receive, were you not on sick leave. This rate is inclusive of any Illness Benefit that may be payable to you.

In order to qualify for TRR, you must have accrued at least two years’ service in the Public Service, and there must be a reasonable prospect of you returning to work to deliver regular and effective service. If you have had more than one period of employment in the Public Service, these can be added together to count towards the TRR service requirement, so long as there are no breaks between these periods of 26 weeks or more. In all cases it is a decision for your local HR management whether or not to award TRR. If approved, you may avail of 547 days on TRR in a rolling four-year period.