Paid maternity leave is to be increased from 14 to 18 weeks and unpaid maternity leave from four to eight weeks. Employers will also be required to provide breast-feeding facilities for employees during working hours for the first four months after childbirth.
About 25,000 working women will benefit from the changes, which are to be introduced by the Government early next year.
These are the main concessions won so far by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions in the review of the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness.
The current phase of the talks ends tomorrow and, based on the outcome, unions will be reassessing their attitude towards the PPF. However, even if the PPF collapses, The Irish Times understands that the improvements in maternity leave will go ahead.
The extension of paid and unpaid leave will bring Ireland into line with most other EU states, while the introduction of workplace breast-feeding facilities represents a new departure.
The new provisions take on board recommendations from the Department of Health and Children that breast-feeding should be more actively promoted. Employers will be required to provide employees who wish to breast-feed their children with either "an adjustment in working hours" or workplace facilities to breast-feed for the first four months after birth. Pay will not be deductible for production time lost as a result.
The cost of the extra paid maternity leave in social welfare payments is estimated at £16 million a year. This is on the basis that there will be no increase in the number of women availing of maternity leave.
One of the reasons employers and the Government were willing to concede the ICTU demand for improvements in maternity leave is the growing recognition that female participation in the workforce must be increased to reduce labour shortages.
Despite almost a doubling of the number of women employees to 420,000 over the past 20 years, they still comprise only 36 per cent of the workforce. In a report on ways of addressing current labour shortages, the National Economic and Social Forum, on which all of the social partners are represented, identified mothers of young children as one of the main potential sources of new workers.
Most of the cost of the extra leave will fall on employers through PRSI contributions. Employers will also have to bear the cost of replacement staff for workers on leave and improved workplace facilities. However, a significant proportion of the extra costs are expected to be offset by concessions in the Budget.
Meanwhile, unions and employers are still deadlocked over pay, with no improved offer so far on the original terms of the PPF. Talks are expected to continue at least until the Budget, but without a pay increase it is likely that many unions will seek increases through local bargaining.