Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour)
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123. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the progress in providing a right to force majeure leave to workers in the context of the pandemic. [35096/20]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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The Government takes the needs of working parents very seriously , and particularly the difficulties they are facing in the current pandemic. There has been a number of advances in the leave available to working parents in recent years. The Parent’s Leave and Benefit Act 2019 introduced paid parent’s leave of two weeks for each parent to be taken in the first year of a child’s life or within the first year of placement with the family, in the case of adoption. The Parental Leave (Amendment) Act 2019 further extended the availability of unpaid parental leave – as of 1 September 2020, each parent has an entitlement to 26 weeks which can be taken up to a child’s twelfth birthday.

Where a parent requires urgent leave from work, they may avail of force majeure leave which gives an employee a limited right to leave from work. Under the Parental Leave Acts 1998 and 2019, this leave is available where, for urgent family reasons, the immediate presence of the employee is required due to illness or injury of a close family member, including a child or adopted child. The maximum amount of leave available is 3 days in a 12-month period or 5 days in a 36-month period.