Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Okay. First of all, I want to repeat something that has been said here all day. There have been many Members denying in this House that there was a concerted campaign by the Government - some members of the Government and some Fianna Fáil backbenchers - to create this mythical cohort of workers who are doing much better on the pandemic unemployment payment than they were before when they were working. One particularly notorious low-paying employer talked about workers having won the lottery. Like much of the former Taoiseach's stories, it is a myth but it serves a purpose. One has to ask oneself what purpose it serves. It tries to set one group of workers against the other and if workers are doing that - blaming each other - then they take their eye off who is really milking the system and profiteering from the pandemic. They will not notice who really won the lottery. I refer in this case to the owners of the private hospitals, who are receiving €115 million per month for the allowance of the beds to the system which we absolutely need. People like Larry Goodman and Denis O'Brien are seriously profiteering from a cost four times that of what is being paid in the UK. I make that point because it is important for the Taoiseach or the Minister, Deputy Madigan. The next time they feel compelled to talk about shame of those doing better on €350 a week, they might check their own ESRI statistics, which show that those who may be doing better are marginally better off, by between 1% and 5%. That is not a hill of beans. It is not the amount by which they are trying to convince us that they are better off. Neither I nor my colleagues in Solidarity-People Before Profit will stop campaigning or stop defending this payment and pointing out that there are large gaps in the scheme and there are cohorts who have been left behind. The latter include those who were mentioned here today - arts workers, taxi-drivers, people in the gig economy, seasonal workers who had not started regular work in January and February, people who were on unpaid sick leave or on sick leave at the time - in January and February - and, most glaringly, women on maternity leave.

Like others, I welcome the announcement today that the Minister will adjust the wage subsidy scheme to deal with the illegal discrimination against women who had returned to work during the pandemic and found that their employer could not put them on the scheme, or that they were being paid based on very low incomes during the period they were on maternity leave. However, there is still a huge problem for women and babies out there, and it is essential that the duration of maternity leave should be extended to facilitate them. There are women who are really scared about the prospect of having to return to work. When their jobs are expecting them back and when their maternity leave is ticking away, they are worried about this. Over 22,000 of them have signed an online petition. They cannot return to work in the middle of the pandemic. They cannot access childcare. They cannot put their children at risk. They cannot rely on the old reliable grandparents, who always looked after children. Even if they are working from home, they cannot rely on them during this period of the Covid pandemic. Therefore, they need to have their leave extended to cover the Covid crisis. If we can rightly suspend other forms of legislation, employment law or planning law, to deal with the anomalies in this crisis, we need to extend the maternity leave and allow these women stay at home with their babies. As I mentioned previously, it is not only about the women. It is also about the safety and care of their babies.

The Minister answered yesterday a question I put to her previously. It is an extensive answer.

I welcome that because these women have been writing to the Minister and receiving very glib answers. In her response, she said the decision to extend the period of maternity leave for employees would have to be implemented by the Minister for Justice and Equality, who has policy and legal responsibility for this area. I did not hear the remark but I understand the Minister for Finance said earlier that responsibility lay with the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection. I am getting tired of the pass-the-parcel scenario in this House. For example, responsibility for the nursing homes is being passed from the HSE to the nursing homes themselves, and if not to the nursing homes, to HIQA. Can we stop passing the parcel on this and have a decision from somebody to extend maternity leave for the women? The Minister, Deputy Doherty, said in her response that, given the current level of maternity benefit and the way it is being paid out, it would amount to a weekly cost of €10.3 million, increasing to €134 million for a three-month period, or the duration of the Covid payment. I put it to her that the €134 million pales into insignificance by comparison with the value we would get from it through protecting mothers and babies in this scenario. We paid €84 million to the greyhound and horseracing industry in a grant before Christmas. I do not want to make a comparison between animals and women and their babies but it is obvious that one group is far more valuable to this society than the other. The extra money probably the equal of the amount we are paying the private hospitals per week.

I do not want to labour the point but really want to pursue this with the Minister. Is she responsible or is it the Minister for Justice and Equality? Will we end the passing of the parcel and deal with this urgent situation? The Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection knows - I am aware the women have written to her - that women are panicking and need the security of knowing they will not be forced back to work or lose their jobs but instead can stay at home with their babies for the duration of the crisis.

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