Neale Richmond (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House and thank him sincerely for taking the time to engage with it in this important debate. Many of the plans he laid out are welcome. However, there are some issues that I would like to briefly raise with him this evening that might feed into the overall thinking of his Department.

In regard social welfare appeals, I was concerned to learn through my research that 50.2% of original decisions in terms of the disability allowance are being overturned on appeal; 49.3% of original decisions in terms of the domiciliary care allowance are being overturned on appeal; 38.7% of original decisions in terms of the carer's allowance are being overturned on appeal and that there is a 23.3% win rate in appeals in jobseeker's benefits despite this being a PRSI based payment and all information being available on the Business Object Model implementation, BOMi, system. The appeals official cites the high rates of success on appeal as proof of its autonomy from the Department. An alternate view is that this indicates problems at the heart of the welfare system. Poor decision-making and bad administrative practice coupled with increased pressure on the Department have helped push up the appeals rate. While I acknowledge that much has been done by the Department of Social Protection to tidy up this whole area, it is clear to me that much more can still be done and I would ask the Minister to prioritise this work.

The JobBridge scheme was a good scheme that worked well in response to the needs of the times in which it operated. Some 15,000 interns went directly into paid employment immediately following a JobBridge internship. However, I commend the Minister on his decision to wind down the programme now that the overall climate has changed, with the number of those signing on to the live register reducing every month. I echo the call from IBEC for the introduction of a new more targeted scheme. I would also encourage the Minister to discuss ways employers could contribute financially to a new scheme.

On the proposed paternity leave scheme, I regret that I will be unable to contribute to the debate on this issue later in the week. However, I would like to identify some of the European comparisons in this area in the hope that we may be able to learn from previous mistakes. I would also like to put on the record that as of yet, I have no immediate interests to declare in this regard. In the Czech Republic, men are able to take as much parental leave as women. Despite this, men represent only 1.8% of parental leave takers. Men are also eligible for up to 22 weeks leave after the birth of a child. The take-up rate among fathers in Estonia has been steadily increasing since 2008, when a new compensation scheme was introduced. While previously parental leave among was 2%, the latest data from 2013 show an increase in the rate to 6.5%. In the Netherlands, less than 10% of fathers took paternity leave in 2001, although this has since increased to 24%. In Sweden, a similar trend could be found, although most recent statistics indicate an increase to 24.8% compared to 10% when the scheme was first introduced. In Germany, only 20% of men take up paternity leave. Spain permits 300 weeks of parental leave to be shared by parents until the child is three years old. Slovenia mandates 15 days of paid paternity leave and 75 days of unpaid paternity leave, along with the option to split the 260-day parental leave allocation. Very often women have to put their careers on hold or work part-time to take care of their children, while men continue to work full time.Even when men have shown a genuine interest in taking parental leave, the lack of flexible and practical policies has made it next to impossible for some to combine it with their work-life balance. For many years, Ireland has lagged behind most other European countries in the area of paternity leave and while I welcome the Bill to come before the House this week, it will only be a success if new fathers actually make full use of it. Introducing the leave in itself is not good enough and I encourage the Minister to complement it with a public interest campaign informing fathers about the scheme and, most importantly, encouraging them to take part. I also encourage him to engage with his European counterparts to see what worked in Netherlands and Germany to make this leave a real success.