Carer's leave and medical care leave in Ireland

If someone close to you needs full-time care, the Carer's Leave Act 2001 lets you leave work for between 13 and 104 weeks and come back to your job afterwards. The leave is unpaid by your employer, but Carer's Benefit or Carer's Allowance from the Department of Social Protection may be available. For shorter needs, the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2023 added five days of unpaid medical care leave a year.

This guide covers both, in that order, with a line on force majeure leave at the end for the sudden emergency that neither of them is designed for.

Carer's leave: the entitlement in one table

Who can take carer's leave

You can take carer's leave if you have at least 12 months' continuous service with your employer and you intend to provide full-time care and attention to a "relevant person". A relevant person is someone the Department of Social Protection has decided needs full-time care because of a disability or illness, or because of age. The person does not have to be a relative, and they do not have to live with you, as long as the care you give is full time within the Department's meaning.

The decision that the person needs full-time care is the gateway. You apply to the Department, the person's doctor completes a medical report, and the Department issues a decision. Your employer is entitled to see that decision before confirming the leave. Apply to the Department well before you give notice to your employer, because the six weeks' notice runs from your written notice, not from the Department's decision.

You can be on carer's leave for only one person at a time, unless two people living with you need care at the same time, in which case the Act allows both. Once you have used 104 weeks for one person, you need a gap of six months before taking carer's leave for a different person.

The 13 weeks and the 104 weeks

The total leave for one person is 104 weeks. The minimum for any block is 13 weeks, unless the employer agrees to a shorter period. An employer can refuse a request for a block shorter than 13 weeks; it cannot refuse the leave itself where you qualify.

Within the 104 weeks you can take the leave as one block or as separate blocks. Where you take separate blocks, the Act requires a gap of at least six weeks between them. So a pattern of 26 weeks, a return to work, and a further 26 weeks later is possible, and so is one block of 104 weeks.

You cannot work for anyone else during carer's leave, apart from limited work that the Department permits alongside Carer's Benefit, which it caps by hours per week. The Department's rules on that are the ones that apply, and breaching them can end both the benefit and the leave.

The leave planner works out the end date of a block, the 104-week total across blocks, and the six-week notice date for each one.

Notice and confirmation

Give your employer written notice at least six weeks before the leave starts. The notice must say that you intend to take carer's leave, the date it will start, how long it will last, and whether it is one block or several, and it should enclose or refer to the Department's decision that the person needs full-time care. Keep a copy.

Not later than two weeks before the leave starts, you and the employer sign a confirmation document setting out the dates. If the dates need to change afterwards, both of you agree it in writing. Where the leave cannot be given with six weeks' notice because the need arose suddenly, the Act allows a shorter notice period where it is reasonable in the circumstances; tell the employer as soon as you can and put it in writing.

An employer that disputes your entitlement, or the dates, cannot simply refuse. The dispute goes to the WRC, which can decide whether the leave is due and when.

Carer's Benefit and Carer's Allowance

The Carer's Leave Act gives you the leave. The money, if any, comes from the Department under two different schemes:

• Carer's Benefit is a PRSI-based payment for people who leave work to care full time. It is paid for up to 104 weeks for one person, which is why the leave and the benefit are usually taken together. You need enough PRSI contributions, and you must have been in employment for a period before the claim; the exact conditions are on the Department's page.
• Carer's Allowance is a means-tested payment for carers on low incomes, with no PRSI condition. It can be paid during carer's leave if you qualify.

This site does not publish the weekly rates of either payment, because they are not in the figures it verifies; the Department's pages give the current rates and any Budget change is tracked on /changes. The acronyms used here are explained in the glossary.

You can take carer's leave without either payment if you do not qualify, provided the Department has made the decision that the person needs full-time care. The leave does not depend on the benefit.

Your job while you are on carer's leave

During carer's leave your contract continues and your service is unbroken for the purposes of your employment rights. You are treated as if you had been at work for every purpose except pay and pension contributions. You accrue annual leave for the first 13 weeks of carer's leave in any leave year, and public holidays during those 13 weeks are added to your entitlement; the rules are in annual leave entitlement in Ireland. You can ask the Department for credited PRSI contributions for the weeks of leave.

You are entitled to return to the job you held, on the same contract and on terms no less favourable, or, if that is not reasonably practicable, to suitable alternative work on terms not substantially less favourable.

Under the Unfair Dismissals Acts 1977 to 2015 a dismissal wholly or mainly because you took or asked for carer's leave is treated as unfair, and the usual 12 months' service requirement does not apply. Penalising you for taking it may be penalisation under the Carer's Leave Act. A complaint goes to the WRC within six months, extendable to twelve for reasonable cause; see how to make a WRC complaint.

Carers are also entitled, under the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2023, to request flexible working, with the employer required to answer within four weeks. If a change of hours would let you keep working while caring, that route is covered in remote and flexible working requests.

Medical care leave: five unpaid days

Carer's leave is for a long absence to give full-time care. Medical care leave, introduced by the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2023, is for the shorter need: a few days to be with a family member who is seriously ill.

The five days renew every 12 months. The person you care for does not need a Department decision; the test is that they need significant care or support for a serious medical reason. The employer can ask for a medical certificate or other evidence of the medical reason, and can ask for a written statement of your relationship to the person and the nature of the care, but cannot refuse the leave where the conditions are met.

You confirm the leave to the employer in writing as soon as reasonably practicable, which can be after the day itself where the need was urgent. The leave is unpaid, so for a short absence it may be worth checking whether paid force majeure leave applies instead.

Medical care leave carries the same protection as the other statutory leaves: your service continues, your job is protected, and penalising you for taking it, or dismissing you for it, can be referred to the WRC.

Force majeure leave in one line

Where a family member is suddenly injured or ill and your immediate presence is indispensable, force majeure leave gives you up to three paid days in 12 months and five in 36, under the Parental Leave Acts; it is covered with domestic violence leave in domestic violence leave and force majeure leave.

Choosing between the three

The three can be used in sequence. A sudden emergency may be force majeure on the first day, medical care leave for the days that follow, and carer's leave once the Department has confirmed that full-time care is needed.

Where this leaves you

Carer's leave is 13 to 104 weeks, unpaid by the employer, with 12 months' service, a Department decision on the person needing care, six weeks' written notice, and a confirmation document two weeks before you start. Carer's Benefit or Carer's Allowance may replace some of your income. Medical care leave is five unpaid days a year with no service requirement. Both bring you back to the same job.

The leave planner takes the date the Department confirmed the need for care, your intended start date and block length, and gives you the notice deadline, the confirmation date, the end of the block, and how much of the 104 weeks remains.