Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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Yes, Chair, that is the primary issue. When we made a decision to bring forward legislation to deal with the Leave Our Leave issue, I made a request that we would also deal with the NDA issue, as part of that legislation. I see this as something important. There is a much larger reform of the Equality Acts due and work is ongoing on that but we looked to bring the NDA piece forward. However, we had prioritised the issue of making provision for women to defer their maternity leave. In order to get a stamped draft of the Bill ready for presentation on First Stage and subsequent debate in the Dáil. As the members know, changes happen in the layout of the document before us today in terms of the general scheme, before we get to a draft that is submitted. The Bills Office was of the view that the time needed to get the drafting on the NDA piece right would mean that it would come in as a Committee Stage amendment, rather than in the original Bill.