Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

One woman, Emma, wrote that they brought their baby home on 27 March where their adoring family looked at her through a window and that their hearts were broken not being able to share their miracle baby with their family. She says she was so upset and so sad she could not even hold her mother, that she was on her own for all of the labour except for ten minutes and that her husband barely made the birth. She says they have had a hard start and continues to detail that hard start. Emma says this is what her maternity leave has been. The response of the Government to Emma and the 30,000 people who signed the petition is incredibly stingy. The Government is starting as it means to continue and its proposal is nowhere near what is necessary. The Sinn Féin motion is a bare minimum that anyone who fights for the rights of women should be voting for.

Even if the motion were implemented, it would not change the fact that the country's parental and maternity leave schemes are in need of change. The pandemic has exposed even more sharply the clear problems with the system, but the problems predated Covid-19. The State's attitude towards working-class families has always been one of contempt. Nothing has made that clearer than the fact that 62% of INMO members have had to use annual leave for childcare purposes during the crisis. So much for applause for our front-line workers. The low level of paid maternity leave and parental leave, which are among the lowest in Europe, is part of an entire system of a neoliberal capitalist race to the bottom. At the very least, employers should be forced to top up welfare benefits to full pay.

Two measures that would transform the experience of parents, and mothers in particular, are a 30-hour week without loss of pay and two years of fully paid leave for parents. This would create conditions to fight against the gendered expectation that childcare is primarily a woman's job. It would significantly improve the health and well-being of parents and children. The Government's offer is completely inadequate.

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