Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I know the Minister of State is very passionate about this. Both the Taoiseach and the Minister have stood up and said this is not on. They have called on the hospital directors and masters of the maternity units to get on with lifting those restrictions and allowing partners in. It would be remiss of me not to say that my own hospital, Cavan General Hospital - and not everyone is lucky enough to have a maternity unit - is letting partners in. One of my own staff who is going through that journey is having a lovely experience and her partner has been allowed in with her. There is a midwifery-led unit there. They could come up with loads of reasons they would not allow a partner in but that is not the case and they are. Every hospital should be working in the same vein and allowing partners in with the mothers. It is not just a women's issue; it is a family issue. The Ceann Comhairle has rightly pointed out that the men or partners left out in the car park are equally upset about this. Their voices have to be heard in this debate as well.

I also want to make the point that there is an opportunity here. There has been an explosion in home births. A cousin who went through this chose, because of Covid, to have a home birth. There is huge leniency towards that. There is an opportunity with the Department, the HSE and maternity services to embrace that, to nurture it and to allow women to have that choice and make it more readily available.

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