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

I thank the women who launched this campaign and who have worked tirelessly to bring it to this point. I thank the National Women's Council for their support and I thank Sinn Féin for tabling the motion. I tabled a motion under the previous regime, which was circulated and signed by more than 77 Deputies. I will return to this at the end of my contribution. It was kicked around the House between the Ministers with responsibility for justice, social protection and finance and it eventually ended up in limbo. We had the formation of the Government last week, and it was being kicked around until a statement was made last night that parents' leave would be extended by a number of weeks. To their great disappointment and shock, the women out there find themselves back at square one.

Having listened to the Minister's speech and having read through it carefully I want to pick up on a number of issues. She stated it is too complex to change the legislation. Although the Minister is not here - perhaps she will look back on this afterwards - I want to ask her whether she has looked at the Financial Provisions (Covid-19) Bill, which is 142 pages of extremely complex and technical legislation to ensure we have business as usual. We passed legislation during the emergency that covers evictions, redundancies, mortgages and all sorts of complex areas of society, but this is about women and babies.

I remember acutely how we sat in the Chamber discussing the repeal the eighth campaign and trying to reach a position of consensus with the Citizens' Assembly and then having long arduous hours of arguments about women's right to choose. That choice is about being able to have a child as much as choosing not to have a child. Here are women who have had children and their choices are being utterly minimised by the countermotion presented to us tonight.

I will not go through the sad cases of the individuals who have written to me and the many tortuous issues women with small babies have had to face during Covid. The Minister said it is not about money. I got a figure from the former Minister, Senator Regina Doherty, of more than €130 million to cover all of the women who would be entitled to an extension of three months of maternity leave if the motion was passed. We then had a figure from the Taoiseach of €75 million. If it is not about money then what is it about? It is about women and babies.

Tomorrow we will further discuss financial legislation to commit ourselves to more than €600 million of European Union funds for which we have no accountability. We do not know what the funds will do or where they will go. We know exactly what the millions that would be spent on extending maternity leave would do. They would improve the quality of life of thousands of women and babies and, therefore, improve society as a whole.

As are other Deputies, I am extremely worried that this is a real setback for women's rights in this country. These are rights we fought very long and hard to win. Women are losing their jobs and failing to get promotion. Women will be set back in their careers because they cannot find anybody to mind their children. Crèche places are just not available and grandparents, who usually act as a substitute, cannot do the job. The fact that women are having to resign from jobs and forgo promotion is a kick in the face for women's rights and it is utterly shameful that the new Government would do something like this.

I want to go through today's Covid figures because it is significant that we have had the largest number of new cases in a month. Today there have been 32 new cases, with ten people in intensive care. We have no certainty that the pandemic has gone away. In fact, we are probably looking at a spike. What do we then say to women who are being forced back to work with small babies at home? The Government has to do the right thing and grant this extension to maternity leave.

My last words are to the Green Party because eight of them signed the previous motion that we had hoped to present to the House. Eight of them made statements to women, such as that it is of utmost importance that mothers of new babies have adequate childcare options available to them. Deputy Neasa Hourigan said that extending maternity leave is Green Party policy and that she really wanted to support it fully. What are those Deputies going to do on Thursday when it comes to a vote? Will they vote against the Sinn Féin motion and support the terrible countermotion tabled by the Minister? What about all of the Deputies in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael who enthusiastically signed the petition? They will have to answer to their constituents if they vote against the motion on Thursday.

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