An extra 150,000 parents will be able to avail of unpaid parental leave following a Government decision yesterday.
The Cabinet agreed to broaden the unpaid leave option after the European Commission complained that the current legislation was too restrictive. The Parental Leave Act, implemented last year by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr O'Donoghue, allows parents of children born or adopted after June 3rd, 1996, to take up to 14 weeks unpaid leave for children up to five years.
However, Mr O'Donoghue is to shortly extend the leave to children born after June 1993. This followed complaints from the employment and social affairs section of the European Commission which said the Parental Leave Act did not fully comply with EU legislation.
Recently, the European Commission issued the Government with a "reasoned opinion" which noted that "by restricting the right to parental leave to employees with children born or adopted on or after June 3rd, 1996", Ireland had not fully complied with the obligations in an EU parental leave directive.
The Commission said if nothing was done, they would refer the matter to the European Court of Justice. The parental leave can be taken in one block or as a number of broken periods by agreement between employer and employees. Last year, around 460 parents in 15 Government Departments availed of the option.
Employees retain all their employment rights during the period of the leave.
It was estimated that the annual cost of paying those availing of parental level at levels similar to unemployment benefit would have been around £26 million. However, the Government decided to make parental leave an unpaid option.