Parental Leave

Eligibility

This leave applies to biological and adoptive parents of a child under the age of eight.

Parental leave must be taken before the child reaches the age of eight years.

An amendment to to parental leave entitlements (DES Circular 01/04) outlines an increase in age eligibility from six years to eight years in the case of:

• biological parents; and
• adoptive parents of children under three years of age at the time of the adoption.

There is no amendment to the entitlement where an adopted child is three or more years but less than eight years at the time of the adoption. In this case parental leave must be taken within two years of the date of the adoption order.

These amendments came into effect from 1 December, 2003.

You must have worked for a period of one continuous year with the same board of management before you can claim full entitlement of parental leave. However, if you have been compulsorily redeployed and providing you have worked continuously for at least one full year in your former school before being redeployed, your entitlement is unaffected.

If you have less than on year but more than three months' continuous service with a board of management, you are entitled to parental leave for a period of one week for each month of this service completed at the time of the commencement of the leave.

Amount of Entitlement due

Each parent is entitled to take parental leave for a maximum period of 14 weeks in respect of each eligible child.

The leave is not transferable between parents.

The maximum parental leave allowed in a given twelve month period is fourteen weeks even if you have more than one eligible child. However, this provision is set aside in the case of multiple birth.

Eg; Twenty eight weeks' parental leave in respect of twins may be taken in the same twelve month period.

However, where a teacher has two eligible children of differing ages, this teacher can only take a maximum of fourteen weeks' parental leave in one twelve month period.

Unpaid Leave

Parental leave is unpaid leave. This unpaid leave is not reckonable for pension purposes, however, it is reckonable for incremental purposes; ie your increment date is not affected by your period(s) of parental leave. It does not constitute a break in service for PRSI purposes.

For further information, please refer to DES Circular 01/99 - Parental Leave and the more recent Parental Leave amendment stated in DES Circular 16/00.

An information booklet is available from the Department of Education and Skills entitled Maternity, Adoptive, Parental and Paternity Leave.

Entitlement to Public Holidays

Teachers on parental leave currently receive entitlement to paid leave in lieu in respect of any public holiday occurring during the period of parental leave. The leave in lieu is taken at the end of the parental leave period. See DES Circular 123/06