Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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553. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if consideration has been given to the provision of maternity leave and benefit; if she will ensure that parents can afford to take up the scheme and avoid a significant drop in income with regard to the current payment rate and in cases in which employers may be required to top-up the salaries of parents availing of this scheme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39296/22]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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As a result of measures introduced 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.

The Government is committed to the continued support of working parents to achieve a better work-life balance. Two weeks Paternity Leave and Benefit were introduced in 2016. 

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 Parent's Leave and Benefit 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.

In Budget 2022 the Government provided for an increase in the number of weeks of Parent's Leave and Benefit available to eligible parents from five weeks to seven weeks from 1 July 2022.  The estimated overall cost of the increase in Parent's Benefit to seven weeks is approximately €19 million for a full year.

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. This is a matter for employees and their employers.

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.

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

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.