Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the members for affording us the time to come to the committee in relation to this pre-legislative scrutiny. I also thank the committee for the expeditious way it has dealt with this issue, notwithstanding how busy it is.

My opening statement has circulated and I will outline a few points contained therein. A key priority of mine when I was appointed as Minister of State was to get the Moorhead report enacted, and second one of the key issues that had significant urgency attached to it was maternity leave for our elected representatives. We have seen in public discourse how frustrated women have been in terms of not having that right enshrined in legislation as they go about discharging their functions as elected representatives. At that juncture, I took action in April 2021, when we established a sub-group comprising women from all political parties and none, who essentially adjudicated on what the framework or proposal should be for maternity leave and what would suit their needs, because obviously everyone has very different and varying needs. We gave women the option to frame the proposal that they would like, and this is the genesis of what they asked for.

We also consulted with the Association of Irish Local Government, AILG, the Local Authority Members Association, LAMA, Women for Election, the National Women's Council of Ireland, and See Her Elected to ensure that we were covering every area in relation to this support. What really jarred with me was that women had to get a resolution from the local authority under section 18 for absences of more than six months. Essentially that meant women facing into maternity leave caring for a young infant would have to go into the council chamber seeking a resolution from a potentially male-dominated local authority to gain permission to take maternity leave. In a modern democracy that is totally unacceptable. That is why this piece of reform took priority at that juncture.

We will also be putting forward a policy framework around paternity leave and adoptive leave. However, I would point out to members that in relation to each of those areas for parental leave of 26 weeks and adoptive leave of 24 weeks, councillors can take those under the current rules and do not require an extension under section 18. We will hopefully put a policy framework forward around that in the coming months, but as I said the urgency was to ensure that the lacuna in the law for maternity leave was rectified urgently.

I also want to point out the work we are doing through our women's caucus network which we have established right around the country, which is a huge support for women in an apolitical way. Furthermore, through working with See Her Elected, we took first in Europe in the European innovation in politics awards with an incredible initiative it has supporting women, which was a very proud day for that organisation. I am privileged to work with it.

In other reforms, we have remote working now for our local authorities which gives them additional flexibility, so we have done our best to hive out all of those opportunities the global pandemic presented, and to keep the best of those opportunities to ensure local authority members are supported into the future. Obviously, we really appreciate the work the committee is doing and we will continue apace, hopefully, to have our legislation finalised on foot of the committee's report, which we eagerly await. As it is a small piece of legislation, it is doing exactly what it says on the tin and we would appreciate if the committee continued in the fashion that it has done in expeditiously bringing forward its report.