Parental Leave
Unpaid, job-protected leave for parents to care for young children.
Parental leave is time off for parents to spend caring for their child, separate from maternity, paternity and adoptive leave. In Ireland it is a statutory entitlement of up to 26 weeks per child, generally unpaid, available until the child reaches a specified age.
It sits alongside the separate, State-paid Parent's Leave scheme, which offers a shorter period of paid leave for each parent in the child's early years — a distinction that often confuses employers, so policies should name each scheme clearly.
Employees must usually give notice and meet a service requirement, and leave can often be taken in blocks or as reduced hours by agreement. The UK operates its own parental and shared parental leave arrangements with different rules, so multi-country employers should treat each jurisdiction separately.
