Tánaiste party leader Leo Varadkar is willing to examine the possibility of paid maternity and pension benefits for women working on farms. However, speaking at a Fine Gael conference on Agriculture and Rural Development in Tullamore, Co Offaly, he said it might be tricky due to issues around Pay Related Social Insurance (PRSI).
Responding to a question on the matter from MEP Maria Walsh and the Women in Agriculture Stakeholder group — who highlighted how Finland and Austria recently introduced paid maternity leave benefits for women on farms — Varadkar said: “I think that is really important. One of my proudest moments as Minister for Social Protection was bringing in paternity benefits and paid paternity leave for men.”
“I still get letters and DMs (direct messages) and tweets today from people thanking us for that special time off that dads now get with their kids when they are born.
“We do reasonably well in Ireland when you look at the number of months that you get paid and unpaid, we don’t do so well in terms of the amount you get.
“We just pay a flat amount per week, whereas in other countries it’s a bit like the PUP (Pandemic Unemployment Payment). It’s linked to how much you earned before and I’d be in favour of moving towards that model. I think with women on the farm what’s slightly tricky is no obvious link, or link, to PRSI.
“We had this issue before with contributing pension. Traditionally, in the traditional breadwinner model, even though the woman might have been doing much of the work, the income was put through the man’s account. It was the man who paid PRSI and the woman who didn’t and I think we need to look at that, and I think we need to try to change that as well.“
We have made some changes to properly recognise women who were in a caring role so that they get a contributing pension. I think we need to examine that as well for women (working on farms) to make sure that their work is properly recognised.”