Lisa Chambers (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I want to focus on increasing participation of women and gender equality in the workforce, and the work the forum might have done or intends to do in this regard. A practical example of a company that is leading the way on one aspect of this is Diageo, which announced it was giving 26 paid paternity leave entitlements to its male employees. It has set the bar quite high and I would imagine it makes it a very attractive workplace for somebody who has young children or wants to have children. That is a good example of a company trying to do more than just the minimum.

For women in the workplace, the gender pay gap still very much exists in this country. When women take time out to have children, they tend to limit their opportunities for promotion or delay promotion opportunities. Very often in the interview process, if a woman is of a particular age, she is automatically disadvantaged because she is seen as being of higher risk. It would be good to hear the witnesses' thoughts on this issue.

My colleague, Deputy O'Loughlin, and I drafted legislation around shared parental leave based on an acknowledgement that current entitlements mean there is a difficulty in funding additional leave. The idea behind the legislation was that the existing maternity benefit could be transferred to a woman's partner if she decided she did not want to take the full six months, or that she could not because she is self-employed and running her own business. I would appreciate the thoughts of the witnesses on that.

I strongly believe the legislation would have helped a little bit to level the playing field for young women. Unfortunately, and in the interests of full disclosure, it is not being supported by Government, which was very disappointing to us. However, it did receive cross-party support on Second Stage from every other grouping.