Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Phelan. They are covered. I did have a quick look. I have the note, although I do not have it with me. I apologise and I will send it to the Deputy straight afterwards. What we do know is that over 20 years, there is a cost of €56 billion to time lost. I apologise for not having the figure with me. I thought I had it with me and I will supply it. I would say to employers that there is a huge value in having the capacity to plan and for this leave being taken in a planned way. There is also a huge value in the retention of experiential learning.

What you learn on the job, and this could be any job from a barista to a CEO, you have with you and some of it cannot easily be passed on to someone else. When an employer loses a valued member of the team, the employer does not just lose the physical presence, the hands, the eyes and the physical activity: the experiential learning is lost also. This can be quite detrimental to a company. In an ideal world this leave would not be needed at all or it may only be needed or availed of once, but it must be considered in the context of being able to maintain someone over the course of their career, the impact of such leave over the course of that person's career in keeping them in the workplace, and ensuring that the employer does not suffer that loss of experiential learning. I fully appreciate that this is not an exact answer to the question, but I will get it.

The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, quite rightly keeps a close eye on the finances, and I would expect that it does, but several State agencies and organisations are already moving ahead in this regard. NUIG has already implemented this policy. I launched it last year with Deputy Phelan's colleague, the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Harris. NUIG has already moved on this and it is my understanding that all of the universities, or the vast majority of them, have indicated that they will bring this in during 2022. There is a positivity there and it is great to see the public sector leading the way. We then need to see not just the bigger organisations but also smaller ones coming to the fore and having their questions answered. There will be questions and I do not for a moment imagine that this will be plain sailing. It is another form of leave and I do not believe it is at all grubby to mention the concern for employers around the bottom line but it must be looked at in the round. One must look at the opportunity costs and the costs that are lost.