The most recent conciliation conference regarding workers with Long Covid took place at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) in early May.

The discussions to date have centred around two cohorts of staff. The first group of staff are those presently in the temporary Long Covid scheme which was recently extended, with approximately 120 included in it. While management has not formally committed to a permanent scheme, they are to refer back to the unions regarding a proposal which may resolve this issue going forward.

The second group of staff members are those who were not eligible for the temporary scheme and have had to use the normal sick pay scheme. Progress was not made at the WRC in resolving this issue, but management has committed to conducting an exercise to see how many staff members would be in this second group.

The parties are to reconvene at the WRC later to discuss the issue further.