Australia is now being outperformed by Ireland in public service sickies, according to the latest figures.

But the methods used by the European nation to get on top of its unscheduled absences – slashing entitlements by half – might find few fans in the Australian Public Service.

While the Australian government continues to grapple with its growing workplace absenteeism problem, other developed nations are turning to tough measures to keep their public servants at their desks and Canada too is in the midst of an unpopular crackdown on the leave entitlements of its federal public servants.

Canada wants to slash sick leave entitlements for its public servants from 15 days a year, which can be banked indefinitely, to just six days a year with workers expected to apply for short-term disability benefits if they need more time off work.

The conservative Canadian government is battling public sector unions to get its changes through while the Irish government was taken to its nation's High Court over its reforms by police unions.

The Republic of Ireland's public service managed to get its sickie rate down to less that of its Australian counterpart last year, to 8.7 days compared to 8.8 in the APS in 2014, but the harsh medicine taken by the Irish bureaucracy is unlikely to be palatable here.

The improvement came after sick leave entitlements were effectively halved last year, for the country's 290,000 public servants, which counts teachers, health workers, military personnel and local government employees.

The Irish government thinks it has saved itself about $75 million, slashing the cost of sickies from $545 million to about $470 million and boosted productivity by an additional 260,000 days.

But it has come at a price: in March last year the level of paid leave was cut from from six months on full pay and six months on half pay to three months on full pay and three months on half pay - though the old entitlements apply to critical illnesses.

The cuts were part of a tough austerity program being applied to the public sector which has seen numbers plummet, services slashed and salaries and wages cut.

In Australia, sick leave among the Commonwealth's 160,000 public servants was estimated in the latest figures to be costing $500 million a year in lost productivity with a senior official lamenting in late 2014 that the problem was "seemingly intractable."

Most federal public servants are entitled to about 18 days a year sick and personal leave, which can be rolled over to the next year if not taken.

The overall median rate of unscheduled absence, including sick leave, the median across all APS agencies in 2013–2014 was 12.0 days per employee, an increase of 0.4 days compared with the previous year.

Although some changes to the accrual of leave are on the table at various agencies in the present round of wage negotiations, big changes to entitlements like the Irish and Canadian examples are not being contemplated.

But Public Service Commissioner John Lloyd has promised a get-tough approach, urging line managers to ask more questions of workers taking sick leave.

Mr Lloyd has also pledged to cut the red tape he believes is hampering bosses' attempts to get serious about tackling sickies.