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

Paid parents' leave was originally introduced by the previous Government and offered two weeks of leave per year per parent. At the time, we saw a significant imbalance, in that mums took that leave but dads did not. During the Covid-19 pandemic, that changed. We have now extended it by so much that by August of next year, paid parents' leave will have gone from two weeks per parent per child to nine weeks. That is significant. It is a seven-week increase of paid leave for each parent in the term of one Government. That is something for which I and the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Humphreys - we both have responsibilities in that regard - have pushed. During the pandemic, we saw a significant increase in dads taking up paid parents' leave. I will look up the figures for the uptake last year but it certainly increased. We are doing a good job to normalise it so that both mums and dads take up their full allocations of paid leave.

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