Parental Leave - age changed?

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muffin1973

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Parental and Force majeure leave

"In the case of parental leave, each parent is entitled to 14 weeks unpaid leave for each child, to enable him or her to take care of the child.

The leave must be taken before the child reaches five years of age."


Does anyone know has this allowance been changed in respect of children up to the age of 8 years of age??:confused:
 
It is planned,

Extract from this [broken link removed]

Minister of State at the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr. Willie O'Dea, T.D., today announced that the Government has agreed to improve the existing parental leave provisions in a new Bill to be drafted shortly and published by the end of the year. The amendment of the Parental Leave Act 1998 comes on foot of the recommendations made in the Report of the Working Group on the Review of the Parental Leave Act 1998, published in April, 2002 which the Government agreed to implement as part of a package of legislation on employment rights in the Sustaining Progress Partnership Agreement.

Mr. O'Dea said "I am pleased that progress is being made on this legislation which is the third of 3 Bills the Government agreed to bring forward under the Work/Life Balance Programme in Sustaining Progress. The Bill will enhance the entitlement of employees to take time off to care for their children by allowing the leave to be taken in a broken format and over a longer period of time. The Bill when drafted will also extend the entitlement to persons in loco parentis which recognises that many children in our society today are actively cared for by persons who are not their natural parents. This is an important provision which recognises the diversity of family life in modern Ireland."

The main amendments to the parental leave legislation are as follows:-


  • A statutory entitlement to take the 14 weeks parental leave in separate blocks of a minimum of 6 continuous weeks, or more favourable terms with the agreement of the employer;
  • Raising the maximum age of the eligible child from 5 to 8 years;
  • An increase in the maximum age of the eligible child to 16 years in the case of children with disabilities;
  • Extension of parental leave entitlements to persons acting in loco parentis in respect of an eligible child;.
  • That an employee who falls ill while on parental leave and as a result is unable to care for the child be entitled to benefit from sick leave for the duration of the illness; and
  • Provision for statutory codes of practice on the manner in which parental leave and force majeure leave might be taken and the manner in which an employer can terminate parental leave;
 
muffin1973 said:
Parental and Force majeure leave

"In the case of parental leave, each parent is entitled to 14 weeks unpaid leave for each child, to enable him or her to take care of the child.

The leave must be taken before the child reaches five years of age."


Does anyone know has this allowance been changed in respect of children up to the age of 8 years of age??:confused:
Click to expand...
No - see the Equality Authority website:
Q6. I heard the age limit is increasing to 8 years of age, has this happened yet?

It is likely that the age limit currently specified in the legislation will be increased to 8 years of age, however no date has been confirmed for these changes to come into effect.
Click to expand...

and :
(Please note, there has been much mis-information regarding the provisions of the Parental Leave Act recently. Specifically some people think that the 5 year old age limit has been extended to 8 years. This is not the case. The provisions of the Parental Leave Act currently remain as outlined above.) However, a new Bill, was published at the end of 2004 which proposes to allow parental leave in respect of children up to the age of 8, and up to age 16 if the child has a disability. This new law is not yet in force however and is currently going through the houses of the Oireachtas.
Click to expand...
 
Are you sure? Can you link to any info about this? If this is the case then presumably it is a contractual rather than statutory right for PS workers?
 
Yes I am absolutely certain.

Circular Letter LG (P) 21/03


19 December 2003



Amendment to Parental Leave Entitlement (Age )


To each Personnel/Human Resources Officer and Town Clerk


A chara,

1. The Parental Leave Act, 1998 and the European Communities (Parental Leave) Regulations, 2000 set out the statutory entitlements to Parental Leave. The “Guidelines for Implementation of the Parental Leave Act, 1998 in Local Authorities”, which were issued by the Local Government Management Services Board in May 1999, contained guidance on the implementation of the Act. The Board issued revised guidelines to local authorities on 20 November, 2003.

2. The Programme For Prosperity and Fairness provided for the review of the Parental Leave Act. The Report on this review by the Working Group, under the Chairmanship of the Department of Justice Equality and Law Reform, was published in April, 2002 and a number of recommendations were made to Government following on from the review. In advance of the Government decision on changes in legislation required to give statutory effect to these recommendations, it was decided to implement two of the recommendations for local authority employees: the maximum age of the child in respect of whom employees may take parental leave be increased from 5 to 6 years and to16 years in the case of a child with a disability. Circular Letter LG (P) 12/02 implemented these changes with effect from 1 January, 2003.

3. Sustaining Progress (paragraph 12.3) commits the Government to strengthening the Parental Leave scheme in line with the recommendation of the Working Group. The parties also agreed on raising the age of the eligible child from 5 to 8 years and that provision for this would be made in the amending legislation. It has been decided that effect be given to this commitment in advance of the changes in legislation required to give it statutory effect and, accordingly, the following changes may be implemented with effect from 1 December, 2003.

- 2 -

Maximum age of the child increased from 5 to 8 years
4. The maximum age of the child in respect of whom employees may take parental leave is increased from 5 to 8 years. In the case of an adopted child, where an adopted child is three or more years but less than eight years at the time of the adoption, the parental leave must be taken within two years of the date of the adoption order. In the case of an adopted child under three at the time of the adoption, the parental leave must be taken before the child is eight years.

Queries
5. Should you have any queries in relation to this Circular Letter please contact Linda Cullen or Catherine Marsh at 01-888 2344 / 888 2355.



Mise, le meas,



Donncha Ó Muíneacháin,
Local Government Personnel Section

c.c. Each City/County Manager
 
OK - so it's a special dispensation to Public Servants and not yet a statutory change. Thanks for the detailed information.
 
The issue with the raising of the age of children covered by parental leave by Civil Service Department, Public sector Agencies, - or any other employer for that matter, is strictly by agreement between the employer and employee.

I cannot re-iterate this strongly enough - the law on parental leave has not changed at all. Legally, you are therefore only entitled to take parental leave from employment in respect of children under 5 years (or older in the case of disability, etc.)

Where any employer agree to allow employees take parental leave (or other unpaid leave) from work to care for children over this age is a matter for negotiation between you and the employer. You can clearly see this has occurred in the case of the employer and employees from which the circular outlined above covers.

In other words - your employer may allow you take unpaid time off work to care for children of of any age - but they are not legally obglied to do so.

At lunchtime today, (28 Sep) I heard one of TD's mention the Government are anxious to progress the Parental Leave Bill 2005 through the Oireachtas. It is proposed this will give legal effect to an increase in age of children covered by Parental Leave.

Until then however, the law on parental leave remains in force, unless you and your employer come to a local agreement.
 
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