Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

There is a lot there that I welcome, but what the Minister has said on deferred leave is important. The Irish Cancer Society has been in touch with me and several other Members of the House to get that point across. That is something we would certainly like to see. The domestic violence leave is a superb piece of work and I congratulate the Minister on it. Neither the Minister not I are likely to benefit from the breastfeeding supports, but by God I think anybody who takes on that job of work deserves every bit of support they can get. It is an absolutely fabulous piece of work. There have been huge steps forward with all of these forms of leave, in particular parental leave. With paternal leave I think there is a cultural barrier we need to get over. There are the financial pressures and I think we have gone a long way towards easing that. There are workplace pressures where your employer may not be particularly excited about you taking up your full entitlement. There is also social pressure. The lads might be asking if you are really going to take that amount of time to be at home doing dishes. We need to tackle all of those things as well as the legislative work the Minister has done.

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