Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to speak here tonight and to support this very important motion. I compliment Deputy Catherine Martin and the Green Party for introducing the motion. Tá fíor-fháilte roimh na daoine sa Gallery - daoine óga agus na parents. I am delighted to welcome them. I met them earlier in the AV room and elsewhere. It is wonderful to see little babies and to hear the sounds of the little babies. There is wondrous sound here this evening from the Gallery.

I have raised this issue a number of times over the past few years since I first became aware of the full reality of premature birth when my first granddaughter was born in 2014. My granddaughter, Amy, was born 10 weeks prematurely and spent three months in hospital, two months of which were spent in a neonatal intensive care unit in a hospital that was more than one hour from her home. During this time my daughter and son-in-law had to live in a home away from home in Cork. They were accommodated in the wonderful facility that is Brú Columbanus which allowed them to be near their daughter in hospital. In this regard, their life was to a certain extent put on hold. Had they not had access to Brú Columbanus, which many families in other cities do not have, they would have had hefty accommodation or travel bills to comprehend, adding additional stress to an already stressful situation. When Amy was finally discharged after three months in hospital, she was just two weeks corrected but she continued to have a number of extra care needs to those of a newborn baby as she was tube fed and still on a lot of medication. At this stage, my daughter had just three months left on maternity leave, much of which was spent attending hospital and doctors’ appointments. On discharge, they were advised not to put Amy into child care until she was at least three years old due to her compromised health, yet my daughter was expected to return to work in just three short months or take unpaid leave to care for her daughter.

Not alone does this highlight the need to extend maternity leave for parents of premature babies, it also highlights a wider societal issue where there is little or no supports for families that care for their children in their home. Many parents of premature or sick children do not have an option but to care for their children at home. The only child care supports available to them are to put their children into child care but this simply is not an option. While I am fully supportive of this motion, my only concern is that it does not go far enough and focuses solely on premature babies by extending maternity leave for the length of time that the child spends in the neonatal unit. Many full-term babies can spend weeks and months in a neonatal unit or children’s hospital if they are born with heart disease or other complications. These parents are no different to parents of premature babies as they have to endure the same hardships and the same stresses associated with having a sick baby. I believe that the payment should be extended by the length of time that any child spends in a neonatal unit regardless of whether they were born prematurely.

It would be remiss of me not to mention the fact that this once again brings us back to the failings associated with the National Children’s Hospital. The lack of, or delay in having, a co-located maternity hospital beside our children’s hospital will continue to have an appalling impact on the lives of our premature children as many of them will continue to have to be transferred from our maternity hospitals to children’s hospitals for treatment, thereby separating mothers and their babies, both of whom could be critically ill, and putting these children at unnecessary risk.

The shortage of the Ronald McDonald beds at the new hospital will also put additional financial strain on families.

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