Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Taoiseach here to the committee and I thank him for coming.

I will pick up on the five days statutory paid leave entitlement for domestic violence. It is essentially Government policy, given that the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Harris, has written to all universities asking them to introduce ten days paid leave for victims and survivors of domestic abuse. The main universities have agreed to that. Fianna Fáil introduced a Bill in 2018 that had ten days statutory leave. Statutory leave in the North of Ireland is ten days leave. It was initiated by Green Party MLAs and that is now law in the North. Surely we should harmonise our all-island policy and introduce ten days leave in legislation, as the Taoiseach's party proposed in 2018.