Men’s health charity Movember has called for reforms of paternity leave in Ireland and is appealing to the Government to establish a Paternity Leave Working Group to examine key barriers and opportunities, including length of paternity leave, payment rates and workplace culture.<\/p>\n
The State paternity benefit is currently \u20ac299 per week, for two weeks, which must be taken consecutively.<\/p>\n
A new report from Movember has found that fathers in Ireland are losing out on three-quarters of weekly average income when they take State paternity leave.<\/p>\n
The research also found that Ireland is fifth from bottom among EU states when it comes to providing paid supported leave for new fathers.<\/p>\n
“Ireland\u2019s allocation of two weeks paternity leave is the minimum possible under EU law and lags well behind many European counterparts,” according to the study.<\/p>\n
The ‘Extra Time with Dad’ report has been launched to mark Men\u2019s Health Week and in advance of Father\u2019s Day on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The study examined the overall picture of paid support leave for new fathers in Ireland and considered the financial, economic and cultural barriers to fathers availing of statutory leave entitlements.<\/p>\n
The report also draws on the findings of a survey of 403 fathers with children aged ten or under, which was commissioned by Movember.<\/p>\n
It found that almost seven in ten respondents who took paternity leave experienced financial strain.<\/p>\n
Half of those who had taken paternity leave said they felt that taking more leave would have put their career progression at risk.<\/p>\n
“Dads who take paternity leave report better mental health, stronger bonds with their child, and greater ability to support their partner,” said Movember Country Manager Sarah Ouellette.<\/p>\n
“When fathers are supported, families benefit. Ten years on, Ireland still lags behind Europe,” she said.<\/p>\n
“We are calling on Government to act, beginning with the establishment of Paternity Leave Working Group bringing together key stakeholders to address this whole-of-society issue,” she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Men’s health charity Movember has called for reforms of paternity leave in Ireland and is appealing to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502228,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60],"class_list":["post-502227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}