No. 297 The Additional Paternity Leave Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2010
These Statutory Rules introduce Additional Paternity Leave and Pay, giving eligible employees (usually fathers) a right to take up to six months’ leave from their employment to care for a child, if the child’s mother or (in the case of adoptions) the primary adopter returns to work without exercising their full entitlement to maternity leave.
Some of the leave may be paid if it is taken during the mother’s maternity pay period or, for adopted children, during the primary adopter’s adoption pay period. The entitlement to Additional Paternity Leave and Pay will apply to parents of children due on or after 3 April 2011, or to adoptive parents notified of having been matched on or after that date.