Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The question of introducing a paternity benefit payment would depend on establishing an underlying entitlement to statutory paternity leave in the first instance. Responsibility for issues relating to paternity leave rests with the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform.

Following commitments made in the social partnership agreement Towards 2016, a working group led by the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform has been convened to review the level of provision of both maternity and paternity leave. The group is currently examining various options and is due to conclude its deliberations before the end of 2008. The work of the group will be informed by the commitment in An Agreed Programme for Government to increase, over the next five years, paid maternity leave by five weeks, to make all leave after the first 26 weeks available to either parent, and to examine the possibility of introducing a statutory entitlement to paternity leave and shared parental leave. The Department participates in this group.

While male employees are not entitled under Irish law to either paid or unpaid paternity leave, they may be entitled to parental leave. Parental leave entitles both parents who qualify to take a period of up to 14 weeks' unpaid leave from employment in respect of children aged up to eight years. There is no provision for a social insurance based payment for periods of parental leave, but employees may be entitled to credited contributions to maintain their social insurance record for the period.

The introduction of paid paternity leave would have significant cost implications. For example, the estimated full year cost of introducing a paternity benefit, on a similar basis to maternity benefit, would be €273 million. The question of how such a payment would be financed would have to be examined.

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