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

I did consider that option. When framing this legislation, there were three Acts that we had to go through to amend, the Local Government Act 2001, the Maternity Protection Act 1994 and the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005. As we were working through the current legislation in place, we found that section 50 of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act is clear on the requirements of maternity leave, that women cannot engage in work. That is why, when we were trying to put officeholders into the shoes of employees for the purposes of maternity leave only, without having to make any constitutional change, and to do it quickly, we felt that the best mechanism to take the stress and pressure off women on maternity leave would be to give them an option of having a substitute if they wanted to take that clean break, and to navigate though section 50. It is very hard to draw the line if we say that women can do some work but claim maternity benefit, when the law explicitly states that they cannot. That is why the substitute has to take up the role fully. We do not want the mother of a newborn infant to be worrying about what emails are coming in and what work pressures are happening in her constituency or electoral area. Hopefully, this payment-----