Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)

As Deputies know, while males are not entitled under Irish law to either paid or unpaid paternity leave, they may be entitled to parental leave. Parental leave entitles both qualifying parents to take a period of up to 14 weeks unpaid leave from employment in respect of children aged up to eight years of age. Paternity leave is generally understood to be the period immediately after the birth of a child and such leave is not a feature of our system.

The question of social insurance funded payment for paternity leave would be contingent on the underlying entitlement to statutory parental leave. In the absence of statutory provision for entitlement to paternity leave, the question of making a social insurance-based payment during such an absence does not arise.

It is worth pointing out that responsibility for questions relating to entitlement to paternity leave rests with the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. Entitlement to paid paternity leave was considered by the working group on social partnership which undertook a review of the Parental Leave Act 1998. The report was published in 2001 and dealt with the principle of paid paternity leave. It stated that the group had divergent points of view and could not reach a consensus on the issue. For that reason, no specific proposals for paid paternity leave were advanced.

Should a framework for paid paternity leave be introduced, the cost of such a scheme for three days at 80% of wages, subject to a minimum rate of €270.80 and a maximum of €280 per week, is estimated at almost €6 million. This could rise to €10 million for five days paid paternity leave. Both of those are based on the assumption that all fathers would take the leave and 95% of them would be paid at the higher rate. There are no specific proposals at this point to introduce paternity leave but I have outlined the costs and draw Members' attention to the availability of parental leave.

See this speech in context