Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

This is modest legislation and provides for some improvement in parental leave in accordance with the Sustaining Progress agreement. However, the Government should be embarrassed to debate this Bill in the Oireachtas at this time. It is long overdue and implements an agreement that has run out at this stage. This Bill is pathetic when demands are growing and debate is raging though the State on child care, the extent of need and the magnitude of response required from Government. We should be better employed debating a comprehensive Bill dealing with maternity, paternity and parental leave in the context of a range of legislative and fiscal measures to provide a comprehensive child care service. Instead, we are debating this Bill and we must await the impending budget to see what emerges from Government to meet the massive child care needs of the people of this State.

I welcome the Taoiseach's statement yesterday that the Government cannot discriminate between parents providing full-time care in the home and parents who work and pay for child care. I hope the Taoiseach will follow the logic of that statement by ensuring the implementation of the necessary changes in the coming weeks and months. The basic principle is that we must put children first. Putting Children First is the name we chose for our pre-budget submission just over 12 months ago. It has been employed by others since then, but I suppose on the basis that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, we welcome the Labour Party's recent contributions to this debate.

Children and their needs must be at the centre of the child care debate and the first priority is the best care for all children. Parents who wish to provide that care in the home must be allowed do so without suffering the major drop in income that so many experience. Such a fall in income can be crippling and lead to real difficulties in people's daily lives. As things stand, a work-life balance for many families does not exist. Work and the needs of employers are the predominant factors which often prevent people who wish to do so from starting a family. Young couples delay having children because of the situation with the work-life balance. In addition, those conditions prevent people with young children from giving them the care and attention to which they are entitled.

Many young couples now work long hours to service large mortgages, health insurance and many other costs facing those on average incomes who are starting out in life and endeavouring to provide a home of their own. This is before they even take into account the cost of providing for children.

It is frustrating to have to address this Bill when it fails to provide the essential improvements in maternity and paternity leave. Currently, mothers are entitled to 18 weeks' paid maternity leave and eight weeks' unpaid leave. The key demand is for the Government to change the law to guarantee, as of right, 26 weeks' paid maternity leave which, as I have pointed out on many occasions, is the situation north of the Border. The community I represent does not stop at the Border; it takes in a wide hinterland. Despite this, we have this serious differential and inequity in periods of maternity leave North and South. We must ensure that the same supports apply to mothers in this jurisdiction. That measure alone would provide vital relief to thousands of people, but if there is no such provision in the promised package of Government measures, that package will be fundamentally flawed. I hope and trust that this will not be the case and that we will see maternity leave harmonised on an all-Ireland, all-island basis in the Government's proposals.

The Bill omits any reference to paternity leave. Public sector employees receive a minimal three days' paternity leave, but no one has a statutory entitlement to it so people must rely on the goodwill of their employers. That is not acceptable. Many EU member states have legislated for paid paternity leave so that fathers can spend time with their newborn children. Paternity leave ranges from 18 days in Finland to two days in Greece. The absence of such a provision in this Bill represents another missed opportunity. We must await the promised package of measures to see how it will be addressed by the Government.

I now wish to deal with parental leave, but first I note that the Minister is taking leave of us.

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