Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to speak on this Bill, which gives maternity leave and maternity benefit to elected councillors in line with the Maternity Protection Act 1994. I thank the Minister of State and his Department for their work in getting the legislation to this point.

I am glad that the Bill provides for the co-option of temporary substitutes for women when they are absent as a result of giving birth, illness or for other good-faith reasons. Sinn Féin would like to go further. In the case where a councillor chooses not to have a substitute we would like to see that they would have the opportunity to vote remotely. Given the Minister of State's progressive work on this Bill, I hope he will look favourably on that. There needs to be urgent progress in this regard.

There also needs to be a Department circular for reboarding that is standardised across all local authorities in the case of women returning to work from maternity leave. All local authorities need guidance on best practice and providing facilities and supports to elected members who are returning to work. This has already been recommended by the Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage. Sinn Féin would also like to see that where a councillor opts not to have substitute, he or she will be given appropriate administrative support. Further, we would like the Minister to publish the regulations in that regard in order that women will know where they stand before they decide on expanding their families.

In north Kildare, I am asked all the time about what it is like for women getting into politics and how we can get more women into politics. I am asked that by various people, including by female students at Maynooth University. All the time I say to them that we can start with getting the basics right, such as public transport, because it is invariably mothers who end up dropping kids to school when the bus does not turn up. Having childcare is also extremely important. It must be affordable and accessible. Money and financial security matter to women too because no pregnant councillor should be effectively abandoned financially and this leave is a positive step, which we have been seeking for many years. Women know what we need and what we want. Female politicians have a duty to make sure that things are better for the women who we hope will come after us. In that practical way, hopefully fewer of the women coming up will ask whether we get maternity leave and how we manage to juggle everything. I doubt if any of the male politicians are asked how they juggle everything. It is important that we do prevent women who have the potential to be great from entering politics, because the country misses out when that happens.

Equally, we would like to see breastfeeding facilitated for councillors and I would urge the Minister of State to engage with the local authorities to make sure this is established and instituted throughout our councils. It is vitally important for women and their babies that this could be facilitated as a matter of course and adequately supported as a right, as opposed to on the basis of a favour.

I thank the Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage and the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, for their excellent work on this matter and for the recommendation in respect of the Moorhead report. I would also like to acknowledge my comrade on Louth County Council, Councillor Joanna Byrne, from my party, who did great work on the working group. She was really invested in that work. It is time to extend maternity leave rights to Members of both Houses of the Oireachtas and officeholders in advance of the next general election. It is hard to credit that we do not have it already, but the Government will hopefully move with the necessary speed to introduce it.

I brought up the following point at the Joint Committee on Gender Equality when we were working on the citizens' assembly. We were talking about how good it is to see a Cabinet Minister taking her second period of maternity leave during a Government's term of office. Doing that helps to normalise matters. We have come a long way from when the leader of my party, Deputy McDonald, was excoriated when, as an MEP, she took maternity leave. I also raised this matter at the Joint Committee on Gender Equality. Deputy McDonald was excoriated in political and media circles and people asked where she was. I hope that with this new attitude towards women taking maternity leave and women’s role in politics, fewer women will have to see that and we will be able to get more of them into politics. Politics is about policies and people, and women are good at both.

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