Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

About 23,000 women take maternity leave every year. If it were available, it is estimated that half of all fathers would take some paternity leave. I favour the idea in principle. The cost of maternity leave is about €300 million. The difficulty with previous working groups was agreeing how such leave would be provided for and who would pay for it. There would have to be an agreed system of payment if it were to be brought in. However, one alternative for fathers in some occupations is to take the unpaid parental leave obligation. I am aware that a number of employers currently have de facto arrangements and pay fathers up to three days' leave on the birth of a baby. I know the Deputy's question refers to a wider provision, but that would have to be funded. We could look at that issue again in the future. With the current state of the economy, it might be difficult to fund it. An argument was made before that employers should fund it, but they had an issue with that in the past.

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