Minister for Justice, Equality and Defence, Alan Shatter recently announced that the Government has given its approval of the drafting of the Family Leave Bill 2013.
The Bill is designed to transpose the provisions of the revised Parental Leave Directive (EU Council Directive 2010/18/EU). The deadline for transposition of this directive into legislation is the 8th March 2013. Ireland once again are cutting it very close when it comes to transposition, and as per the Agency Workers directive, and previous Directives, failure to transpose this Directive in the designated timeframe can result in fines on a per day basis.
The Directive seeks to improve the rights of Parents when it comes to parental leave across the EU. Ireland already has very favourable conditions in relation to this, as put forward in the Parental Leave Act, 1998, which provides for up to 14 weeks parental leave, or one week per month of service if the employee has less than one years service.
Under the newly proposed Bill some of the key provisions are;
- An increase in the amount of parental leave from 14 weeks to 18 weeks per parent per child.
- Leave may be transferred from one parent to another but only on the grounds that each parent retains at least one month’s leave, which is a departure from the current legislation.
- On their return to work employees have a right to request a change in their working patterns however this is at the discretion of their employer.
- The new Legislation will grant parental leave to all workers regardless of whether they are on part-time or fixed term contracts, which is more reflective of current practices and Acts/Directives that have preceeded our 1998 Act (Part Time Workers Act 2001 & Fixed Term Workers Act 2003), where an employer can not discriminate between workers based on part-time or fixed-term status.
- Member States can make this subject to a length of service qualification (although this cannot exceed one year), which is the case currently in Irish Legislation.
- Member States have the option whether to require employees to take the leave at one time or on a piecemeal basis, currently in Ireland if employees wish to break up their leave into block, they must take a block of at least six weeks leave, with a gap of 10 weeks in between blocks.
- It is also proposed to consolidate all family leave legislation (maternity leave, adoptive leave and carer’s leave) into one accessible Act, which will provide ease and clarity for users. this is very much in keeping with Minister Richard Bruton's desire to consolidate all employment law into one Act also (admittedly a much greater exercise).
