Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his contribution and those Members who attended the House this evening, who contributed to the debate and pledged their support for the legislation.

The Minister of State spoke quite a bit about a significant increase in the child care budget. While there has been a significant increase the point is that we started from an extremely low base. Ireland is an outlier in European terms in this area. Developments in recent years have been very welcome but we must bear in mind that they are only small steps in getting towards the EU average. We are currently a very long way from that.

It is important to note that when we talk about child care, parental leave is a significant and important part of the whole child care provision. We must also bear in mind that Ireland fares very badly compared to our European counterparts in this regard.

I welcome that the Government has recommitted to the principle of paid parental leave. It is a welcome development that the Government is talking about that again but where is it exactly? This Government is two years in to perhaps a five-year life span and there has been no progress at all over those two years. We are now in a third year where there will not be any progress again because there is no budgetary provision for it. Three years down the line in the Government term we have not seen any progress whatsoever in delivering the programme for Government commitment on paid parental leave.

The Social Democrats totally supports the principle of paid parental leave. We have been looking for it for a long time. We want to see it happening as soon as possible. Paid parental leave is very important and I absolutely support the principle that parents should be facilitated and supported in being able to care for their child for the first 12 months in their own home. It is a really important thing that we can do, but where is the progress on this? The Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Deputy Regina Doherty, spoke about the matter on radio this morning and she referred to doing it in a phased and incremental way. This does not raise our confidence levels in the context of the Government being able to deliver, even if it does have a five-year term of Government. How serious is the Government about this commitment in the programme for Government? It is impossible to see the Government being in a position to deliver on that commitment before the next election.

Equally, the Minister of State has quoted a number of times the fact that there is an EU directive under discussion. Again, this is a welcome development but as the Minister of State knows with EU directives it could take years. There may not be any practical implications from that directive for several years. Why do we have to wait for Europe to tell us what we should be doing? Other countries have not done this. They have realised it is very important to support parents and families and those countries have gone ahead with their own domestic legislation, which is what Ireland should be doing also.

The Minister of State and his colleagues have made much of the line that they are not really interested in unpaid parental leave as they want to introduce paid parental leave. Of course we all want to see paid parental leave and we want to see that happening as quickly as possible but nobody, and certainly not the Social Democrats, is suggesting that improving access to unpaid parental leave is in any way a substitute for paid parental leave. We fully support that aspiration and we want to see it being given practical effect as quickly as possible to allow parents to look after their children in the first 12 months and to have a regime that allows a payment during that period. Unpaid parental leave is a different thing entirely. We are calling for that in addition to paid parental leave. Unpaid leave is used in a very different way by parents. It is currently available to parents of children up to the ages of eight. We would like to see this continued and would be open to the idea of it going beyond that age. Unpaid leave is not about the first year in life, it is about those other issues that arise throughout a child's younger years where parents really struggle to get the balance between their parental and work responsibilities. That is very stressful for a lot of parents. It is very difficult to do it, especially at particular times such as the pre-school years when there is a short day at pre-school.

It would be very helpful for parents if they could get some relief or breathing space during this time to allow them to manage that situation better. It would also be important for unpaid parental leave to be used when children are in primary school, especially in light of the difficulties that the long summer holidays can pose for parents. If they were helped to juggle the responsibilities that arise at such times, they would be able to spend more time with their children during the summer or Easter holidays. Many parents like the idea of a four-day week. They should be facilitated in that regard.

From a productivity perspective, I do not think anyone would dispute that in the main, a parent doing a four-day week does the work of a five-day week during that period. This is about the welfare of parents and children. It is about making sure that employees who are parents feel generally valued in their dual roles. We know that employees who have a sense of being valued and have access to flexible work options tend to be much more productive. This deals with the challenge of retaining well-qualified and experienced staff, which is a problem that many employers are facing. To a large extent, public servants have access to these arrangements at the moment. Teachers, for example, can take the remainder of the year off at their own expense. There is a high take-up of this popular option.

It was extraordinary to hear various speakers from Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil claiming credit for the introduction of unpaid parental leave. On the one hand, the Minister of State said the legislation we are proposing does not represent the road we should go down, but, on the other, he was claiming credit for the fact that a previous colleague of his introduced unpaid parental leave. Such leave is a good thing and it makes a lot of sense. For that reason, we are saying it makes absolute sense to extend it further. It is very popular and it works well. Some Deputies suggested that, potentially, the only people who will be helped by this proposal will be the better-off. I do not accept that fully. It might look like that on the surface, but I suggest that the cost of paid formal child care is so high that it will benefit many families when they do the sums. Given that significant costs are associated with going out to work, including transport and lunch costs, there are significant savings to be made if one parent does not go out to work. It often makes financial sense for a family to decide that one parent will take the opportunity to avail of unpaid parental leave. This proposal is not geared solely at better-off families. In our view, it can bring benefits for all families and across all income levels.

I welcome the support this legislation has received in the House. We have received a very positive response to it since we launched it last April. Since it was highlighted in the news yesterday and earlier today, we have received several messages and queries from parents who have been welcoming it and asking when it will be implemented. The creation of access to flexible work options is invaluable for many parents and they would very much like to see it happening. The Government has said it does not oppose this Bill. That is different from saying it supports it. I suggest it would be much better if the Minister of State were enthusiastically supporting the Bill. I think there is support for it all around the House and it is achievable. There is a clear and strong demand for it, and it can be done at minimal cost. Everybody wins in such circumstances. The Social Democrats will be pursuing the Bill actively through the justice committee. I ask the Minister of State to stop disingenuously referring to the provision of paid parental leave. While I agree that it should be provided, the unpaid element must also be enhanced because it serves a different purpose. Maybe he will rethink his position in this regard. We would welcome his enthusiastic support for the Bill when we pursue it on Committee Stage.

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