Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy referenced it earlier in the process, and I thank him for bringing it forward. I will make a broader point and a specific point on this particular issue. The campaign to extend to women who were ill the ability to postpone maternity leave was first introduced by the Irish Cancer Society. It was originally for women who were experiencing cancer during maternity leave. That is a mercifully small group of people numbering 50 to 60 women every year. When I decided to bring this forward, I did not feel we could just protect women with cancer as a serious illness and not include other women. Therefore, we sought to broaden it and say women it is who are suffering a serious illness, and we always said this was a serious illness. Originally, that term "serious illness" in some of the earlier drafts was very much looking at a physical illness. I am very aware, however, and we as a society are more aware of the serious nature of mental illness as well. Therefore, it was important for me to ensure that mental illness was covered within the definition of "serious illness". In terms of our engagement with the Department of Health in trying to tie down what that would look like, that is difficult. The identification of inpatient treatment was used as our determining factor. However, it is important for Deputies to understand the genesis from going from cancer to serious physical illness to serious illness including mental illness, although with a definition the Deputy discussed.

We looked into the specific point that IBEC made. Amendment No. 7 also amends section 17 of the Employment Equality Act 1998 to clarify that anything done in compliance with the new section 14C of the Maternity Protection Act 1994, inserted by this Act to provide for a pause in maternity leave for women with serious illness, will not be considered discrimination on disability grounds. In practical terms, this ensures there can be no doubt that granting this pause to someone with a serious illness, but not someone with a less serious illness, does not count as discrimination under the Act. As we know, disability has a very wide interpretation in the Employment Equality Act. This clarification is being added to ensure this pause can be provided for that cohort of women who are suffering from a very serious illness. We have taken a legislative provision here specifically to address the point the Deputy raised on foot of the IBEC concern about a risk of a discrimination claim in the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC. We feel we have addressed it with that legislative provision. I have also spoken to the wider point of how we have tried to evolve this to be a broad provision.

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