Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

To be very clear about this, we already have paid parental leave but we do it in a particular way. We have maternity leave and maternity benefit for the mother and paternity leave and paternity benefit for the father. As a Government, we have increased the cash payment in the last budget and will increase it again in March. We also brought in new rules, particularly around premature babies. That is the current system.

What the Government wants to do and wants to see happen at a European level is a move to a new system of parental leave which would effectively replace maternity and paternity leave and allow couples the autonomy to choose how to share that leave. At present, a European regulation to bring that into effect is under discussion. I am not party to the detailed negotiations on that but I can absolutely assure Deputy Howlin that the Government intends to support the regulation, introduce parental leave and parental benefit in Ireland and change the current system to the one I have outlined. There should still be dedicated maternity leave for mothers because they are the ones who give birth and they need particular time to recover. There should be a dedicated carve-out for mothers, and then perhaps the rest can be shared between the two parents.

Before we introduce legislation, we want to find out what the European legislation is going to be. It would make no sense at all for this Government to enact legislation in respect of parental leave here in Ireland in the next few months only to discover six months later that there is a European directive or regulation to which it runs contrary.

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