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

This amendment is a technical amendment to section 7 of the 1998 Act. It is necessitated by the original intent to increase the entitlement to parental leave from 18 weeks to 26 weeks by the Bill.

Paragraph (a) amends section 7 of the Parental Leave Act 1998 to reflect the increase from 18 to 26 weeks. Paragraph (b) replaces every reference to "18 weeks" or "18 times" to a reference to "26 weeks" or "26 times" for the purpose of calculating parental leave for those parents working on a pro ratabasis or informal hours. The amendment in paragraph (c) is a necessary change to ensure that parents who adopt an older child can benefit from their full entitlement to adoptive and parental leave in circumstances that would otherwise prevent them from doing so.