Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Deputy McAuliffe is at a meeting of the Committee of Public Accounts and gave his apologies.

We cannot grant additional leave until the legislation is passed. Once the legislation is passed the leave can be granted. There is a technical issue with regard to the arrangements for payment of the benefit. The Department of Social Protection is under a lot of pressure at present with the Covid payments. It is doing a huge amount more than it normally would. We will try to speed up the process so that benefit can be provided quickly but once the legislation is passed we will try to make it possible for someone to take leave and retrospectively claim the payments once the benefit issue has been sorted. When I bring the legislation through the House I will be able to provide more clarity on it. It is to allow the leave to be taken as quickly as possible.

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