Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour)
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155. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the measures that are under way to bring maternity benefit to a standard available to workers elsewhere in Europe; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [25356/22]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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As a result of measures in Budget 2022, the rates of Maternity Benefit, Paternity Benefit, Adoptive Benefit and Parent's Benefit were increased by €5 to €250 a week, effective from January 2022. Maternity benefit is paid for 26 weeks. In 2022, it is estimated that my Department will spend in excess of €267 million on maternity benefit in respect of an average of 20,290 recipients per week.

It is worth noting that when a person is in receipt of Maternity Benefit it is open to their employer to top-up the payment to the level of the person’s wages and some employers do this.

New parents are also eligible for Child Benefit which is paid at €140 per month for each child. Expenditure on the scheme is estimated to be more than €2.1 billion in 2022.

The Government has committed to the continued support of working parents to achieve a better work-life balance. The Parent’s Leave and Benefit Act 2019 introduced two weeks of paid Parents' Leave for each parent to be taken in the first year after the birth or adoptive placement of a child. Since April 2021, an additional three weeks of paid Parents' Leave is available to each qualifying parent. The period in which the leave can be taken has also been extended to the first two years after the birth or adoptive placement of a child.

Provision was made in Budget 2022 to further increase the number of weeks of Parent's Leave and Benefit available to eligible parents from five weeks to seven weeks from July 2022. In line with the EU Work-Life Balance Directive, Parent’s Leave and Benefit will be increased by an additional two weeks to nine weeks by August 2024.

When the current durations of Maternity, Paternity and Parent’s Leave are combined this adds to 38 weeks of paid leave for a two-parent family. This will increase to 42 weeks from July and 46 weeks by August 2024. In addition, 16 weeks of unpaid maternity leave is available.

Any changes to the rate of Maternity Benefit would have to be considered in an overall budgetary context.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.