Seamus McGranaghan qualified as a Solicitor in O'Reilly Stewart Solicitors in 2003 and is an experienced Commercial Lawyer dealing with employment, commercial and education cases.
He has experience in the Industrial Tribunal representing both Claimants and Respondents and has provided seminars in relation to particular areas of employment law. Seamus is the only member of the Education and Law Association in Northern Ireland. He specialises in advising schools and colleges on policy matters, employment issues and student welfare. He is also responsible for the Education Law Quarterly Review.
In addition to having contributed at Legal Island’s Education Updates since 2010, Seamus in association with Legal Island provides a live “Employment Law @ 11” webinar on the first Friday of each month, dealing with all aspects of Employment law affecting Northern Irish employers.
Scott: "If someone hit the company's absence trigger, would you have to exclude occasions that were due to self-isolation?"
Seamus: Yeah, look, my thoughts on that would be that there should be a policy by the company or by the employer, ideally a written policy, in relation to how they're going to treat those periods of absences. Whether it's because of they've been sick and genuinely absent as a result of contracting coronavirus or alternatively because they've had to self-isolate. And, you know, we know that the government's stance in relation to self-isolation was that if you were self-isolating as a result of symptoms or for one of the other reasons early on that, you could classify it as sick. You could be given SSP for up to the 14 days, which was recoverable back from the government.
Obviously, look, you know, the position is different in relation to those that are quarantining. That's a different position. But the government said, "No, you're not sick during that period." They are still absence periods. I think my view would be that we are in exceptional times at the minute in and around coronavirus. And I think that, you know, given the position that we're in a global pandemic, that employers should, you know, be on the softer and forgiving side when it comes to absences as a result of either contracting or where you've had to self-isolate because of fear of being in contact with someone or where symptoms have arisen.
So my view would be that a more sympathetic approach by the employer would be required.
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