Fiona O'Loughlin (Kildare South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

I am sharing my time with Deputy Lisa Chambers. On her behalf and on behalf of Fianna Fáil, I am absolutely delighted to introduce this Bill to allow a mother of a newborn child to share her maternity benefit entitlements with the child's other parent if she so wishes. That is an important point to make. This Bill does not propose to force mothers to share any or all of their leave. It merely gives a mother the choice to allocate a portion of her maternity benefit to her child's other parent if she so wishes. In saying that, we fully support a mother's right to choose how much maternity leave to take, how much to share with the child's other parent and when to return to work. This is an important move towards broadening parental choice, promoting gender equality and supporting a healthy work–life balance.

At present, benefits for new parents are relatively poor in Ireland and rank well below those of our European peers. Mothers are entitled to just 26 weeks of paid maternity benefit and have a further entitlement of 16 weeks unpaid maternity leave. Fathers are entitled to just two weeks of paternity benefit. In our last manifesto, and it is still Fianna Fáil policy, we proposed increasing maternity benefit to 30 weeks, increasing the timeframe in which parental leave can be taken and allowing parents to share leave between them. However, we cannot do that in a Private Members' Bill because it would be an added cost to the Exchequer. This Bill does not mandate that parents must share any or all of the leave. It gives mothers a choice to allocate a portion of their leave to the other parent.

The first years of life are recognised as a critical period for children. Increasingly, young children are raised in families where both parents work, and parents may have less time and energy to invest in their offspring. Maternity and parental leave, as well as paternity leave, are an important accommodation designed to increase the ability of families to balance the needs of the workplace and home. It should be flexible to allow the best possible scenario for each set of parents. A woman may wish to share her maternity leave with the child's other parent for a variety of reasons. Certain jobs are more amenable to periods of leave. For example, a person working in an established company may find it easier to take leave than a self-employed person and certain women may wish to re-enter the workforce earlier. We believe this should be for the mother to decide, while protecting the right to 26 weeks.

Parental leave policies that support fathers' or other partners' involvement are a powerful tool to tackle gender inequality. Studies from numerous countries, including America, Australia, Denmark and the United Kingdom, have demonstrated that fathers who play an active role in their children's lives in the early stages of life are more likely to share in child rearing duties later in life. This in turn reduces the imbalance between men and women in terms of responsibility for domestic duties and supports women's participation in the workforce. Furthermore, surveys demonstrate that many fathers wish to play a more active role in their children's lives but are prevented from doing so by financial and cultural barriers. We hope to address this issue by allowing couples to share maternity benefit between them.

Research in 2015 found that fathers were just as likely as mothers to say that parenting was extremely important to their identity. The same research found that 48% of fathers felt that they were not doing enough caring and would like to increase the amount of time they spent with their baby. Fathers should be facilitated in this in order to share rearing responsibilities with the mother. Clinical psychologist David Coleman talks a great deal about both parents creating secure attachments with their babies. Securely attached children grow into teenagers and adults with better self esteem, greater resilience, the capacity to establish and maintain friendships and the ability to deal with strong emotions and impulses. He has written about the research studies that suggest that fathers who are involved, nurturing and playful with their infants have children with higher IQs and better linguistic and cognitive capacities. The evidence also shows that toddlers with involved fathers have higher levels of academic readiness and appear to handle the stress and frustrations of schooling better than children with less involved other parents. Most fathers now recognise the importance of their role as an equal co-parent and want to be empowered to devote the time necessary for doing this.

Essentially, this Bill is about choice, flexibility and equality. It aims to maximise flexibility for parents. It gives the mother more choice to make decisions based on her personal circumstances and what works best for her family. If enacted, I have no doubt that the Bill will transform the potential parental entitlements of fathers. The Bill allows both parents of a child to split the maternity leave more evenly. It will not affect the two weeks of paternity leave that are already in place and, significantly, will not place any additional cost on the Exchequer as it does not extend the current timeframe. Our current system of maternity leave is very restrictive. There is no scope for the other parent to extend the two weeks paternity leave unless the leave is taken from the annual leave allocation. The two weeks paternity leave introduced in the Paternity Leave and Benefit Act 2016 was available for any child born or adopted on or after September 2016 and can be taken at any time within the first six months. New figures from the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection show that 51,409 fathers have taken up the €240 per week paternity benefit payment over the last two years. Given the progress in fathers taking paternity leave over the last two years I have no doubt that a number would equally take up the possibility of shared maternity leave.

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