Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Caroline and Martin. I read about their baby, Stephen. When I saw they were coming in, I have a friend in Trim who knew of their story. I am sitting beside Nina who told me about her baby twins, Liam and Grace. She said she was happy parents were entitled to that leave and that is why I wanted to bring this legislation forward. When writing legislation, you have to pick a number and it has to be direct and all that, but I wanted it to be leave people were entitled to and that they were not at the favour of their employers. Of course, most employers will give at least two weeks' leave to parents who have been bereaved, if not more, but there is an entitlement. I referred earlier to a person at the checkout in SuperValu or Tesco or the person who is maybe answering a customer service call.

Everyone has suffered bereavement. Everyone has a grandparent or parent who is dead, but the bereavement you feel when you lose a child is, I imagine, completely different. Thank God I have not experienced it, and I am happy to say that. I thinking of the daft thing you do when you have a baby of listening to them on the machine to check they are still breathing, as if you are going catch them the very second they stop or something, or the checking on them when they go to bed. The fear of losing a child is the worst fear of them all.

I thank the witnesses for coming and I have listened to what they have said. It is my first time having a Bill at scrutiny. It is really worthwhile to listen to people who have experienced it from all sides and to hear about Senator Clonan's own bereavement that he suffered. I know the Tánaiste suffered the bereavement of a child as well. We certainly take it on board and I am happy to work with the committee to ensure we get this as right as possible.

While I was looking into the witnesses' story, I noticed that the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, has published the Civil Registration (Electronic Registration) Bill 2024, which addresses the 24 weeks issue by reducing it to 23. It also reduces the weight of the baby from 500 g to 400 g and to 200 g in the case of twins. Therefore, baby Stephen would have been recognised.