Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

All of us know women who have suffered miscarriages or couples who have gone through a miscarriage. If people do not believe they do, it is because those women and couples have not shared that experience with them, which is okay. That is why so many couples wait until the three-month mark to announce their news. The sad reality is that one in five pregnancies ends in miscarriage. As a State, we give women who miscarry towards the end of their pregnancy the time and the space they need to come to terms with that but we offer no such support to women who lose their pregnancies early on. They have to use their annual leave. They have to get a vague doctor's certificate or they have to go into work and pretend that nothing has happened, which is worse. That is not fair. My colleague, Senator Seery Kearney, shared her experience yesterday. In the Dáil Chamber, she told of her experience of five miscarriages. Her journey is, unfortunately, all too common but it is not talked about generally or in chambers such as this.

We hear young women raising this issue in the Seanad and, in New Zealand, a young female Prime Minister is leading on the issue. That is because it is up to women such as us, who have platforms such as this, to speak up for other women who suffer these losses of pregnancy and who cannot effect change in the way we can. Will the Minister hear us? Will he support these women and provide for miscarriage leave for women who suffer early miscarriages?

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