Do you get paid if you're injured at work in Ireland?

Not automatically at full pay. Three layers decide your income after a workplace accident in Ireland. Your contract may provide company sick pay, so check it first. By law you then get statutory sick leave, currently 5 days a year at 70% of gross pay, capped at €110 a day ³. After that, Injury Benefit of up to €254 a week carries you for up to 26 weeks ¹.

None of these payments is compensation. They're no-fault supports that arrive whether or not anyone did anything wrong. A personal injury claim is different: it exists where your employer's negligence caused the accident, and it recovers your actual losses. Knowing what each payment covers, and what it doesn't, is how you understand and pursue compensation for injury in Ireland. The alternative is absorbing the shortfall yourself.

Worried the claim itself lands on your employer's desk? In most cases their liability insurer pays, a point covered on our page about who actually pays a workplace injury claim. And does accepting sick pay change anything? No. An employer continuing to pay you is not an admission of liability, and accepting it never waives your right to claim.

Who pays you, week by week?

Your employer pays first, then the State, then the claim. The sequence runs the same way in most cases, and each stage has its own clock. Here is the order:

1. Days 1 to 5: statutory sick leave. Your employer pays 70% of your normal daily pay, up to €110 a day, once you have 13 weeks' service and a medical cert ³.
2. Day 4 or day 6: Injury Benefit begins. Where statutory sick leave was used, Injury Benefit starts on day 6. Without it, payment normally starts on day 4, after 3 unpaid waiting days ¹.
3. To week 26: Injury Benefit continues. Weekly certs keep it in payment while you remain unfit for work ².
4. Week 26 onward: transitions. Illness Benefit, Disablement Benefit or other supports may follow. See the 26-Week Cliff below.
5. Settlement: the claim closes the gap. Past and future loss of earnings above what you received is claimed as special damages.

Statutory sick pay: the first five days

Statutory sick leave in Ireland is 5 days per year in 2026 under the Sick Leave Act 2022 (irishstatutebook.ie) [6]. Your employer pays it at 70% of gross pay, capped at €110 a day. You qualify after 13 weeks of continuous service, and a medical cert is needed from day one ³. Full-time, part-time, agency and probationary workers are all covered.

Company schemes sit on top of the statutory floor, not instead of it. Where a contract scheme pays less than the statutory rate, the statutory scheme is the minimum. On irregular hours, you get the lower of €110 or your average hourly rate over the previous 13 weeks, multiplied by the hours you'd have worked ³. Annual leave keeps building while you're on certified sick leave, and certified sick days that fall during booked holidays can't be taken from your leave.

Some company schemes ask you to have Injury Benefit paid straight to the employer while your wages continue. That nomination is voluntary, and you can withdraw it at any time, per the DSP operational guidelines on Injury Benefit [14]. No employer can require it.

One narrow escape hatch exists for employers. A business in severe financial difficulty can apply to the Labour Court for an exemption from paying statutory sick pay, lasting between 3 and 12 months ³. An exemption pauses the employer's statutory sick pay duty only. It doesn't touch your Injury Benefit or your right to claim.

Unlike in England and Wales, where statutory sick pay runs as a flat weekly amount for up to 28 weeks, Ireland's scheme works differently. It pays 5 days per year at a percentage of your own wage. It's also illegal for an employer to penalise you for taking statutory sick leave or for being injured. That fear is common and deserves a direct answer, which is why we wrote about being dismissed for making a claim against your employer.

What is Injury Benefit and who qualifies?

Injury Benefit is a weekly payment from the Department of Social Protection for employees unfit for work for more than 3 days after a workplace accident in Ireland. It also covers accidents on an unbroken journey to or from work, and prescribed occupational diseases. It's part of the Occupational Injuries Scheme and pays up to €254 a week from 5 January 2026, for a maximum of 26 weeks ¹.

Here's the point most generic guides miss: you do not need a minimum PRSI contribution history. Being in insurable employment (classes A, D, J or M) when the accident happened is enough ². Someone injured in their first week of a new job can qualify for Injury Benefit even though they'd fail Illness Benefit's two-year contribution test. Increases are paid for a qualified adult (€168.60) and for children ¹.

How to apply, and the six-week deadline

To apply for Injury Benefit, act within 6 weeks of becoming unfit for work or you risk losing payment ². The steps are short:

1. See your GP and ask for a Certificate of Incapacity for Work.
2. Complete claim form IB1. Many GPs now send the cert electronically.
3. Send weekly certs for as long as you're unfit to work.
4. Keep every award letter and payslip. They become claim documents later.

How much is Injury Benefit in 2026?

Up to €254 a week. That maximum personal rate applies from 5 January 2026, and the other key rates sit alongside it below.

Injury Benefit is taxable, though no PRSI or USC is charged, and tax rarely bites if it's your only income ¹. Unlike the UK, which has no direct equivalent short-term occupational injury payment, Ireland's scheme pays out without you proving anyone was at fault. The next step is deciding what else the accident record needs to protect, which is where registration matters.

Why register the accident even if you were barely off work?

Because registration creates official State evidence that an occupational accident happened. A detail that catches many workers off guard: you can still submit the Injury Benefit forms even where no payment is due because the absence was 3 days or less. You're entitled to what the rules call a declaration that an occupational accident occurred, and it safeguards your future rights under the scheme ^{14 2}. If a back strain flares into surgery a year later, that record protects your route to Disablement Benefit and corroborates your claim.

The same three-day line triggers your employer's duties. When you can't do your normal work for more than 3 consecutive days, the accident is reportable to the HSA under its reporting rules (2016 Regulations) [8]. So an absence long enough for Injury Benefit is usually long enough that an official report should exist too. Our guide to employer reporting duties covers what happens when it doesn't.

The 26-Week Cliff: what happens when Injury Benefit ends

Injury Benefit stops at 26 weeks even if you're still unfit for work. We call this the 26-Week Cliff, because the payment ends on a fixed date that has nothing to do with your recovery. Plan for it early. Irish workplaces lost 688,000 working days to work-related injury, per the HSA Annual Review (2023-2024) [9]. Long absences are far from rare.

Five routes exist off the 26-Week Cliff, such as Illness Benefit, Disablement Benefit, Invalidity Pension, Partial Capacity Benefit and Supplementary Welfare Allowance ¹. Which applies depends on your contributions and your condition. Two deserve special attention:

Disablement Benefit rewards lasting damage, not absence. You can work full-time and still receive it for a permanent loss of faculty. Assessments of 20% or more pay a pension of up to €285 a week. Lower assessments pay a lump sum of up to €19,940, per Citizens Information on Disablement Benefit (2026) [10]. You generally apply within 3 months of Injury Benefit ending. Partial Capacity Benefit can top up a phased return to work. Constant Attendance Allowance (€271 a week) and Incapacity Supplement exist for the most serious cases ¹⁰. Fatal cases have their own Death Benefit supports.

The Medical Care Scheme refunds treatment costs the HSE or Treatment Benefit didn't cover, per Citizens Information on the Medical Care Scheme (Updated October 2025) [12]. Covered items include GP visits, prescriptions, physiotherapy and certain dental or optical treatment. Notify the Department within 6 weeks of starting treatment. Costs it won't cover, such as private hospital accommodation, are pursued as special damages in the claim instead.

Approaching the 26-Week Cliff is also the natural point to take stock of the claim. By then the wage shortfall is measurable, and the two-year clock is running.

Will benefits or sick pay be deducted from your compensation?

Your general damages are never reduced by benefits you received. What happens instead is structured by law, and it's friendlier than most people fear. At this point you'll need to decide whether the shortfall justifies a claim, so here is exactly how the money interacts.

The Recovery of Benefits and Assistance scheme, plainly

Under the RBA scheme, the compensator (almost always the employer's insurer) repays the State for specified payments you received. Those payments include Injury Benefit, Illness Benefit and Partial Capacity Benefit. The repayment is offset against your compensation for loss of earnings only, never against general damages for pain and suffering ⁵. The scale is real: €160 million was recovered from settled cases by March 2022, per the Comptroller and Auditor General (2021 report) [11]. It came from compensators, not injured people.

Claims like this generally start at the Injuries Resolution Board (IRB), formerly known as the Personal Injuries Assessment Board until 2023. Before paying out, the compensator must request a Statement of Recoverable Benefits, per the Law Society's guidance on the scheme [13]. The statement issues within 4 weeks and stays valid for 3 months. The IRB obtains the same statement before an order to pay issues ⁵. General damages themselves are assessed under the Personal Injuries Guidelines, and awards vary case by case. Our guide to how much compensation for a workplace injury in Ireland explains what shapes them. The wider process of personal injury claims in Ireland runs in parallel with your benefits, not instead of them.

Do you have to pay back employer sick pay?

Some company sick pay schemes include repayment clauses: if you later recover loss of earnings, the scheme is refunded from that element at settlement. One aspect the official guidance doesn't cover is how routine this is in practice. It's handled inside the loss of earnings figure, not as a surprise deduction from your general damages. Your solicitor prices it in from the start.

Take the benefits you're entitled to, and take them on time. If you skip Injury Benefit, the insurer can argue you failed to mitigate your loss and push to deduct what you would have received anyway. Refusing benefits leaves you poorer now and doesn't enlarge the claim later.

The money records that become claim evidence

From handling workplace injury claims, the first documents we ask for are payslips and benefit letters. They shorten the loss of earnings argument by months. Keep these from day one:

• Payslips from before and after the accident
• Benefit award letters and weekly cert receipts
• Your contract or handbook pages on sick pay
• Receipts for treatment, travel and care

What if your situation is less straightforward?

The layers above cover the standard employee case. Plenty of situations sit outside it, and the honest answers differ, so here are the ones we're asked about most.

Injured commuting? Injury Benefit covers accidents on an unbroken journey to or from work ¹. The compensation route is different: it usually runs against the at-fault driver through car accident claims, not against your employer. The benefit and the claim can point at different doors. Employer stopped paying you, or your benefit was refused? Get the refusal or the stoppage in writing, keep certs flowing, and take advice early. A benefit refusal doesn't decide the claim itself. This leads to the question of time: the claim generally has a two-year limit, and evidence fades faster than that.

References

All sources checked and accessible on 17 July 2026. Update dates shown where the source displays one.

1. Citizens Information, Injury Benefit (Updated January 2026)
2. Department of Social Protection, Injury Benefit, gov.ie (2026 rates)
3. Citizens Information, Sick leave and sick pay
4. Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, Statutory Sick Leave in Ireland: assessment (2025)
5. Department of Social Protection, Operational Guidelines: Recovery of Benefits and Assistance scheme, gov.ie
6. Sick Leave Act 2022, Irish Statute Book
7. Department of Social Protection, Illness Benefit, MyWelfare (2026 rates)
8. Health and Safety Authority, Reporting Workplace Accidents and Dangerous Occurrences information sheet
9. Health and Safety Authority, Annual Review of Workplace Injuries, Illnesses and Fatalities 2023-2024
10. Citizens Information, Disablement Benefit (2026 rates)
11. Comptroller and Auditor General, Report on the Accounts of the Public Services 2021: recovery of benefit and assistance payments
12. Citizens Information, Medical Care Scheme (Updated October 2025)
13. Law Society of Ireland, State recovery of benefits in PI claims (2014, scheme in force from 1 August 2014)
14. Department of Social Protection, Operational Guidelines: Injury Benefit, gov.ie