Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 27 September 2018
213. Deputy Eamon Ryan asked the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the estimated cost of extending statutory paid maternity and paternity leave to a year, both shared and unshared; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39304/18]
View answerMy Department's maternity benefit scheme is payable for 26 weeks and paternity benefit for 2 weeks. The 2018 Estimates provides for expenditure of approximately €264 million on Maternity Benefit and €16 million on paternity benefit. The estimated weekly cost of extending the duration of maternity and paternity benefit, based on 2019 estimated average weekly recipients, is approximately €9.7 million and €6 million respectively.
The following table provides details of the additional full year cost of increasing the duration of maternity benefit by 24 weeks and paternity benefit by 50 weeks, providing a total of 52 weeks for each parent.
The table also provides details of the cost of increasing the duration of paternity benefit by 24 weeks to bring the leave for both parents to a combined total of 52 weeks (when added with the existing 26 weeks already available to mothers).
Estimated annual cost of increasing the duration of maternity & paternity benefit based on 2019 estimated recipients at a rate of €240 per week
|
No. of additional weeks |
Estimated cost (€m) |
|
24 weeks maternity benefit |
233 |
|
50 weeks on paternity benefit |
300 |
|
24 weeks on paternity benefit |
144 |
Any extension to schemes can only be considered as part of the budgetary process in the context of overall welfare improvements.
The Deputy is advised that there are additional costs to the Exchequer as these estimates do not include the costs of salary top-ups for public/civil servants or substitution costs.
I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.
