Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am happy to say that next September we will have the introduction of the first child care paternity leave for men, introduced on a modest scale as resources allow for two weeks, and we hope over the life of the next Government to improve and expand this. We also hope, as I said in the course of the budget debate, to expand the further provision of paid parental care in the first year of the life of the child. On child care, notwithstanding that we inherited an extremely difficult financial situation, and notwithstanding that we now have the economy coming into recovery, we devoted in the budget resources not just to older people and pensioners, but we have specifically devoted additional resources to education and child care.

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