Stress leave and mental health at work in Ireland: pay, your rights and returning

"Stress leave" is one of the most searched phrases in Irish employment law and it does not exist. There is no category of leave called stress leave in any Act. What exists is sick leave: if your GP certifies that you are unfit for work because of stress, anxiety, depression or burnout, you are on certified sick leave, with the pay, the protection and the return that any other illness carries. This guide explains the pay, your employer's duties, reasonable accommodation for a mental-health condition, returning to work, the HSE's own scheme, and the narrow route for a work-related stress claim.

Stress leave is sick leave

The certificate is the whole of it. A GP (or a psychiatrist or other registered medical practitioner) who certifies you as unfit for work puts you on sick leave. The certificate does not have to give a detailed diagnosis; "work-related stress" or "medical illness" is enough for the employer's purposes, and you are entitled to keep the detail private. Your employer cannot refuse a certified absence, cannot insist that you work from home while certified unfit, and cannot require you to attend work meetings while you are off, though it can ask you to keep in reasonable contact and to attend an occupational-health assessment.

Follow your employer's absence procedure: tell them on the first day, send the certificate, and renew it before it runs out. A gap in certification is the one thing that turns a protected absence into an unexplained one.

What you are paid

Statutory sick pay

Under the Sick Leave Act 2022, after 13 weeks' service you are entitled to 5 days' statutory sick pay a year at 70% of your normal pay, capped at €110 a day, with a medical certificate from the first day of absence. The Act's planned rise to 7 and then 10 days was paused in 2025 and had not resumed at 13 October 2026; any change is tracked on /changes. An employer's own sick-pay scheme replaces the statutory one only if, taken as a whole, it is at least as favourable. Statutory sick pay explains the detail and the sick pay tool works out the figure.

Illness Benefit

After the statutory days, or where you do not qualify for them, Illness Benefit from the Department of Social Protection is €254 a week in 2026, subject to PRSI conditions, with three waiting days from the start of the illness. You apply through MyWelfare with a certificate from your GP. Illness Benefit covers the application and how it interacts with any employer pay.

Employer schemes

Many contracts give more: full pay for a number of weeks, then half pay. Read your contract and handbook. A scheme may require an occupational-health referral or a longer certificate, which is lawful. Where the scheme is discretionary, ask in writing whether it will be applied and keep the answer.

Annual leave continues to accrue during certified sick leave, and public holidays that fall during it are still owed.

Your employer's duty

Under health and safety law your employer must manage risks to your safety, health and welfare at work, and the Health and Safety Authority (HSA) treats work-related stress as a hazard to be assessed and managed like any other. That means looking at workload, hours, control, support, relationships and change, and acting on what the assessment finds. The HSA publishes a Work Positive tool and guidance on managing stress at work.

Two practical consequences. First, if you tell your employer in writing that your workload, hours or treatment are affecting your health, the employer is on notice and a failure to respond is evidence later. Second, if the cause is bullying or harassment, the bullying at work and harassment guides describe the procedures the employer must run, and a grievance can be raised from sick leave.

Mental health as a disability: reasonable accommodation

The Employment Equality Acts 1998 to 2015 define disability to include a condition, illness or disease which affects a person's thought processes, perception of reality, emotions or judgement. Depression, anxiety disorders, PTSD and other mental-health conditions can be disabilities under that definition, whether the cause was work or not.

Where you have a disability, your employer must take appropriate measures to enable you to do the job, unless the measures would impose a disproportionate burden. For a mental-health condition that commonly means:

• a phased return (reduced days or hours for a period, building up);
• adjusted hours, start times or a different shift pattern;
• remote work for part of the week;
• a quieter workspace or a change of location;
• time off for therapy or appointments;
• a change of reporting line where the relationship is the problem;
• a temporary reduction in targets or a redistribution of some tasks.

The employer must consider what is possible, usually with occupational-health input, and consult you before deciding. An employer that dismisses for incapacity without that process may be acting unfairly and discriminatorily. Discrimination at work covers reasonable accommodation in full.

Returning to work

A good return starts before the end of the certificate. Ask for a return-to-work meeting, bring your GP's view on what you can do, and agree any accommodation in writing. If the employer refers you to occupational health, attend; the report is usually the basis for the plan, and you are entitled to see it. If the cause of the absence was at work, say what needs to change for the return to hold, and put it in the grievance procedure if the informal route does not work.

A performance process that begins on your return, with no regard to the illness, is a pattern adjudicators look at closely; see performance improvement plans.

Dismissal while on stress leave

Being on sick leave does not stop a dismissal, but a dismissal for incapacity has to be fair in substance and procedure: medical evidence, consultation with you, consideration of a return date and of reasonable accommodation, and a fair hearing with an appeal under the Code of Practice (S.I. No. 146/2000). A dismissal that skips those may be unfair, and where the condition is a disability it may be discriminatory as well, which is claimed under the Equality Acts with no minimum service. Can you be fired for being sick goes through the cases.

Stress leave in the HSE

"Stress leave hse" is a common search and it means the HSE as an employer. HSE staff are not on statutory sick pay; they are covered by the public service sick leave scheme, which broadly gives 3 months on full pay and 3 months on half pay in a rolling 4-year period, with a critical illness protocol for serious conditions, and temporary rehabilitation remuneration after that in some cases. Stress-related absence is ordinary sick leave under the scheme, certified in the same way, and the HSE's occupational health service and employee assistance programme are available to staff. The HSE staff guide sets out the scheme, the annual leave bands and the unions.

Work-related stress claims

People search "work related stress claims" expecting a WRC route. There is none: the WRC does not hear a claim for stress as such. The routes are:

• a grievance, and then where there is a legal right behind it (working time, equality, a protected disclosure) a WRC complaint under that Act;
• an industrial relations referral to the WRC about treatment, which ends in a recommendation rather than an award;
• a personal injury claim in the courts for work-related stress, where the threshold is high: a recognised psychiatric injury rather than stress, which was reasonably foreseeable by the employer, and which the employer failed to take reasonable steps to prevent;
• constructive dismissal, where the employer's conduct made it impossible to stay, with the burden on you and the grievance expected first; see constructive dismissal.

A personal injury claim needs medical evidence, a solicitor and years. Most people's first and best step is the written notice to the employer, the certificate, and the grievance.

Looking after yourself

Take the certificate seriously and use the time for recovery, not for fighting the employer by email. If you need to talk to someone now, Samaritans are on 116 123 at any hour, free of charge, and your GP can refer you to counselling or to a HSE mental-health service.

Where this leaves you

Use the sick pay tool to see what you are owed in statutory sick pay and when Illness Benefit begins. If you are in a union, ring them first; a union official will deal with the employer while you are off and attend any return-to-work or capability meeting (find your union). If a dismissal is being discussed, reasonable accommodation has been refused, or the cause of the illness is something the employer did, a solicitor can advise on the equality and personal injury routes (find a solicitor).