Cork council staff took more sick leave than most other local authorities last year

Cork City Council staff took more self-certified sick leave than staff in most other local authorities in Ireland, a new report has shown.

The National Oversight and Audit Committee (NOAC) 2024 report on the performance of local authorities showed that the national average percentage rate of paid workdays lost through medically certified paid sick leave for local authority staff was 3.71% last year, down from 3.77% in 2023.

Cork County Council lost 19,162.3 days, or 3.27% days, to sick leave, while Cork City Council lost 15,585.31 days, or 3.52%.

The city council had the third highest percentage of paid working days lost to sickness absence through self-certification in Ireland, at 0.44% days, while in Cork County Council, 0.27% of days were lost through self-certification, a slight increase from 0.26% the year before.

Highest

The previous year, Cork City Council had the highest percentage of paid working days lost to sickness absence through self-certification in Ireland, at 0.42%, which was an improvement on its figure of 0.47% in 2022.

NOAC also evaluated rent and commercial rate collection and found that Cork City Council collected 85% of rent and annuities for its properties, down from 88% in 2023, 2021, and 2020, and 89% in 2022.

Cork County Council had the second highest rent and annuity collection rate in Ireland, at 98%, in 2024. This marked an increase from 97% in 2023 and 96% in 2022, but a decrease from 100% in 2021 and 2020.

In terms of commercial rates collection, Cork City Council collected 86%, the same as the previous year and a considerable increase from 65% in 2020.

Commercial rates

Cork County Council collected 93% of commercial rates, in line with the two previous years, and up from 2020, at 87%.

The NOAC performance indicator report also looked at library performance and found that while Cork City Council had higher-than-average library visits, it had a lower-than-average number of books borrowed.

Cork City Council saw 4.26 library visits per head of population, the second highest in Ireland, with 849,415 items issued to borrowers and 35,817 registered members.

In 2024, the number of items borrowed from libraries nationwide increased to 17,453,626, a year-on-year increase of 7.61%, but Cork City Council was one of just four local authorities to record a decrease in the number of items borrowed in 2024, with a reduction of 3.69%.