Dáil debates

Wednesday, 13 June 2018

Parental Leave (Amendment) Bill 2017: Report and Final Stages [Private Members]

 

7:30 pm

Photo of David StantonDavid Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 4:

In page 3, line 16, to delete "8 years"," and substitute "8 years".".

The purpose of amendments Nos. 4 and 5 is to modify the Bill's approach to those parents who have already used their full entitlement to parental leave and those parents who were unable to use their full entitlement to parental leave previously. The Government policy is that both sets of parents should benefit from additional parental leave being introduced and, in addition, those parents with unused parental leave should also be able to use any portion of their unused leave. The substantive elements of the changes to the Bill are contained in amendment No. 6, which I will now outline to the House.

Currently, under the Parental Leave Act 1998, the single largest period of parental leave a parent may take is 18 weeks. We were going to increase the entitlement on a phased basis but obviously we have now changed that approach. These particular amendments are consequential on the ones that went before. We were going to propose blocks over the number of years. The amendments do not arise now so I do not believe we will be spending too much time on them. That is all I want to say on the amendments.

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