Employment Schemes

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 3 March 2026

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Tuesday, 3 March 2026

Questions (203, 204, 205, 206)

Emer Currie

Question:

203. Deputy Emer Currie asked the Taoiseach the percentage of parent’s benefit in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 that was topped up by an employer. [16409/26]

Emer Currie

Question:

204. Deputy Emer Currie asked the Taoiseach the number of mothers that had their parents benefit topped up by their employer in 2025. [16410/26]

Emer Currie

Question:

205. Deputy Emer Currie asked the Taoiseach the number of fathers that had their parents benefit topped up by their employer in 2025. [16411/26]

Emer Currie

Question:

206. Deputy Emer Currie asked the Taoiseach the percentage of paternity leave that was topped up by employers in 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025. [16488/26]

Written answers

The Taoiseach

I propose to take Questions Nos. 203, 204, 205 and 206 together.

Referred to CSO for answer

The following response addresses PQ Nos. 16409, 16410, 16411 and 16488 regarding statistics on employer top-ups to Parents benefit and Paternity benefit.

Pay comparisons for certain benefit recipients can be made using an estimated average weekly pay from before, during and after a benefit was claimed.

Due to the flexibility around when, and for how long, an individual may take blocks of Parents Leave, it is not possible to derive pay comparisons in this manner. As such, the data requested is not available.

In the case of Paternity benefit, the short duration of the benefit means it is not possible to derive pay comparisons in this manner. As such, the data requested is not available.

The CSO publication “Employment Analysis of Maternity and Paternity Benefits” contains data on those that were in receipt of Maternity, Paternity and Parents Benefit and was first published in June 2020 with a follow up release in May 2023 as part of the CSO’s Frontier Series Outputs. CSO Frontier Series may use new methods which are under development and / or data sources which may be incomplete, for example new administrative data sources.

Question No. 204 answered with Question No. 203.

Question No. 205 answered with Question No. 203.

Question No. 206 answered with Question No. 203.

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