Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)

I thank the Minister of State for his reply but while a mission statement on work-life balance is fine, the question refers to what the Department intends to do to achieve it. We have just had a discussion on unscrupulous employers. The country is not full of unscrupulous employers. They are very few in number, thankfully, but they exist. People are working for such employers on a permanent or contract basis and we must be serious about legislating to ensure that their families can co-exist with a working life.

Yesterday we dealt with the Parental Leave (Amendment) Bill. Despite it being very welcome legislation which people are desperately awaiting, it is highly inflexible. The inflexibility regarding the time slots that can be taken, the gaps between the time slots and the period in a child's life in which leave can be taken must be lessened. The majority of people in the Republic——

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