Richard Boyd Barrett
Question:351. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Social Protection the estimated full-year cost of increasing maternity, paternity and parent’s benefit to €300 a week. [28869/24]
View answerThursday, 4 July 2024
Questions (351)
Written answers
Maternity Benefit its payable for 26 weeks and Paternity Benefit is payable for two weeks. Currently seven weeks of Parent's Benefit is available for each eligible parent but, as a result of measures in Budget 2024, this will increase to nine weeks per parent from next month.
Maternity Benefit, Parent's Benefit and Paternity Benefit are paid at €274 per week. The estimated full year additional cost of increasing the rates of these payments by €26 to €300 per week is as follows:
|
Parent's Benefit |
Maternity Benefit |
Paternity Benefit |
|
€9,368,011 |
€26,599,187 |
€1,357,074 |
The costs shown above are on a full year basis with the estimated number of recipients in 2024. It should be noted that these costings are subject to change in the context of emerging trends and associated revision of the estimated numbers of recipients.
Changes to payment rates can only be considered in a budgetary context.
I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.