Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I move: “That the Bill be now read a Second Time.”

I am delighted to bring before the House today the Local Government (Maternity Protection and Other Measures for Members of Local Authorities) Bill 2022. The Bill represents an important legislative change which primarily will give elected members of local authorities a statutory entitlement to maternity leave. The Bill is the culmination of a significant amount of collegial work and I take this opportunity to acknowledge the positive co-operation of both the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, the Minister for Social Protection and their officials in progressing the Bill to this stage. I also acknowledge the vital contribution made by councillors themselves, to whom I listened closely and carefully as I developed this policy and legislative approach.

A significant number of Members of these Houses have a background in local government and will be well aware that Ireland has a low rate of female participation in local government. Most recently, in the 2019 local elections, only 24% of the available council seats were filled by women. While a record number of 562 women contested the elections, up from 440 in 2014, they only made up 28% of all of the candidates. The absence of formal maternity leave and, equally importantly, maternity supports to complement such leave have been identified as obstacles to the participation of women in local government.

Before I reflect on the contributions of the Deputies, I will give my commitment to Deputy Lowtry that if he passes on the details, i will certainly do all I can. It is a heartbreaking story and my throughts are with that young boy's family and with him. I know it is a traumatic time. End of life care, it is critical there is coverage across the country. The manner in which the family's wishes are respected is very important, whether it be in hospital, in p

The Local Government Act 2001, the principal legislation covering the local government sector, does not make express provision for maternity leave. In order to allow someone to avail of a period of absence following the birth of a child, section 18 of the Local Government Act is currently utilised. This section provides that a councillor shall be deemed to have automatically resigned from membership of a local authority if he or she is absent from meetings for a continuous period of six consecutive months. Where the absence is due to illness or is in good faith for another reason, the period of absence may be extended first to 12 months and then to up to 18 months. However, this requires a resolution to be passed by the relevant local authority, sanctioning the extended request for absence. This is a totally unacceptable mechanism by which to avail of maternity leave. For this reason, provisions of the Bill will allow for the separation of maternity leave for councillors from such terms and phrases as "illness" or "in good faith for another reason". The provisions of the Bill will mean that a female councillor will not need to go cap in hand to the council for a resolution to avail of maternity leave, and will allow for the introduction, not before time, of formal statutory maternity leave for elected members.

The kernel of the issue is that local authority members, similar to Members of the Oireachtas, are officeholders rather than employees. As such, they are not covered by the statutory framework for employees on issues such as maternity leave, sick leave and annual leave. The relevant extant legislation for maternity leave, the Maternity Protection Act 1994, is applicable to employees rather than officeholders, and this is where the legislative difficulty arises. To this end, the Bill gives legislative effect to Government commitments to establish, for the first time, an entitlement to maternity leave for local authority elected members, equivalent to the current entitlement for employees under the Maternity Protection Act 1994.

The Bill goes further, however. Through discussions with and feedback from stakeholders and representative groups, it became apparent that the councillor role is unique in that it is difficult to step away from the role for a lengthy absence, such as to take maternity leave. The Bill, therefore, also provides for the possibility of the appointment by co-option of an individual as a temporary substitute for a councillor who takes maternity leave under the Maternity Protection Act 1994. The proposal to allow for a temporary substitute is an effort to address situations where councillors may heretofore have felt pressure to turn up for important votes or debates or to fulfil their community representative role at times when they would have preferred or needed to be at home caring for their new baby or recovering themselves. To ensure equality and fairness, the Government has agreed to extend this temporary substitute option to all councillors who are absent due to illness or other good faith reason having regard to section 18 of the Local Government Act 2001.

In parallel, outside of this Bill, and as part of a wider package of maternity-related supports for elected members, a new allowance for administrative supports will be available to female councillors to dovetail with the period of statutory leave entitlements. My Department is currently drafting supporting regulations in this regard and I have committed to engaging with the Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage and the local government sector as those regulations are progressed.

The Bill will address the specific obstacle of access to statutory maternity leave and also provide additional supports to elected members, particularly in an inclusive manner. This will help to ensure that through the proposed provisions to support women who wish to take maternity leave, current and future councillors will be more fully representative of the constituents they serve, but also that the role of the councillor is more accessible and sustainable for all.

I hope a precedent will be set by councillors who avail of maternity leave when it becomes available. If we are to encourage the next generation of women to get involved in local government, it would be heartening for them to see the leave being availed of and to be able to make use of it themselves.

I acknowledge the extensive consultation that has been undertaken, particularly with those most impacted. In April 2021, a cross-party working group of women councillors was established and asked specifically to examine all maternity-related issues for councillors. The group met a number of times in 2021 and gave the Department greater understanding of the needs of women councillors in the context of maternity supports. Specifically, the group reinforced the need for maternity leave and additional supports for councillors, but advised that as much flexibility as possible in accessing those supports was crucial.

Furthermore, the Department actively engaged on the issue with councillor representative organisations, particularly the Association of Irish Local Government, which submitted a detailed and greatly welcomed policy proposal on the matter. The Department also engaged with women’s groups involved in promoting the participation of women in local government, notably the National Women’s Council of Ireland, NWCI, Women for Election and See Her Elected. It further engaged on the issue with the Joint Committee on Gender Equality when considering the recommendations in the report of the Citizens’ Assembly on Gender Equality. Subsequent to these engagements, the Department worked closely with the Office of the Attorney General on the complex legal questions arising, and with the Departments of Social Protection and Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth on the development of the policy approach adopted, as well as the legislative changes required.

I will now set out the main provisions of the Bill. Section 1 provides the necessary amendments to the Maternity Protection Act 1994, as amended, whereby an elected member will be deemed an employee for the purposes of entitlement to maternity leave. The specific provision at section 1 provides for legislative insertions at section 2 of the Maternity Protection Act 1994. Most importantly, a new subsection (2)(d) of that Act will provide for an elected member to be deemed an employee of the local authority for the purposes of maternity leave. Unlike employees who have a contract of employment, as referenced in Part II of the Maternity Protection Act 1994, as amended, local authority elected members, as officeholders, have a term of office which may come to an end at the next local election. Similar to an employee who is employed on a contract of a fixed term, it is not possible for this term to be extended if the elected member is on a period of maternity leave when his or her term of office ends or he or she resigns. Therefore, the period of maternity leave available to the elected member under the Bill ends when the elected member's term of office ends.

The Maternity Protection Act 1994 requires certain notifications of the intention to take maternity leave to be provided by the employee to the employer. A new section 9(3) is being inserted into the Maternity Protection Act 1994 to provide that in the case of a local authority elected member such notifications shall be made to the local authority meetings administrator, a role that is provided for in section 46 of the Local Government Act 2001. This amending legislation required careful consideration of each provision of the Maternity Protection Act 1994 to check whether it is applicable and-or workable if applied to such elected members. In this context, the Bill specifically sets out where certain provisions of the Maternity Protection Act 1994 do not apply to local authority elected members. The insertion of a new section 21A into the Maternity Protection Act 1994 provides for the disapplication of sections 23 to 28, inclusive, of that Act. Those sections relate, among other matters, to the voidance of certain purported terminations of employment, the extension of certain notices of termination of employment or of certain suspensions, provisions relating to periods of probation, training and apprenticeship and so on, and the provisions shall not apply in the case of local authority elected members. Similarly, Part V of the Maternity Protection Act 1994, which relates to the resolution of disputes, shall not apply in the case of local authority elected members who do not have recourse to such mechanisms. This is provided for by the insertion of new section 30A into the Maternity Protection Act 1994 which disapplies Part V of that Act in respect of local authority elected members.

Section 2 contains amendments to the Local Government Act 2001, as amended, which provide that the need for a council resolution to avail of extended absence from the council will not apply where the elected member is on maternity leave. This section also provides the procedures and protocols whereby an elected member causing an extended absence may, if he or she so wishes, request that a temporary substitute be co-opted to undertake the role of the councillor who is absent for the period of that absence. Specifically, a new section (4) is being inserted at section 18 of the Local Government Act 2001 to provide that in the event that an elected member avails of an absence under the Maternity Protection Act 1994, a casual vacancy will not occur and the member will not be required to seek a resolution of the council to extend her maternity leave beyond six months.

A new section 19A of the Local Government Act 2001 provides for the possibility of the appointment by co-option of an individual as a temporary substitute for an elected member who takes a period of maternity leave under the Maternity Protection Act 1994 or who is absent due to illness or in good faith for another reason under section 18 of the Local Government Act 2001. The co-option process will be similar to that provided for in section 19 of the Local Government Act 2001, which allows for the filling of casual vacancies.

The temporary substitution would come to an end when the period of maternity leave or the term of office ends, or if the member resigns, or is deemed to have resigned, under section 18 of the Local Government Act 2001.

In order to ensure an equality of approach, the possibility of the appointment by co-option of a temporary substitute would also be available in the case of a member who is absent due to illness or, in good faith, for another reason. The temporary substitution would come to an end either when the member who is absent resumes their role, when the term of office ends, or if a casual vacancy occurs. In each instance, it is proposed that a member causing the temporary absence would have an appropriate input in the nomination of the temporary substitute. Although mindful that the appointment by co-option of a temporary substitute would prevent the under-representation of the local electoral area at issue, availing of this possibility remains the choice of the elected member and is not imposed on any member.

Section 3 contains the standard legislative mechanisms for citation of the legislation. This is innovative and overdue legislation that aims to encourage any women who wish to become involved in local government to do so knowing that there will be statutory supports and inclusive structures in place to allow access to maternity leave. It is my intent, once maternity leave has been made available to councillors, which is an urgent priority, the Department can examine how best to provide for the availability of paternity leave and other family leaves, for example, parents’ leave and parental leave.

In closing, I would like to inform Members that it is my intention to introduce on Committee Stage some technical amendments to the Lough Corrib Navigation Act 1945. The purpose of these amendments is to address a legal anomaly caused by the repeal of the Drainage (Ireland) Act 1856. While this repeal took place in 2009, the implications only came to light this year. Lough Corrib is managed and maintained by trustees made up of elected members from Galway City Council, Galway County Council and Mayo County Council. The board of trustees has been responsible for all matters relating to the control of navigation on Lough Corrib since 1856 and while the Lough Corrib Navigation Act 1945 provides for membership of the board of trustees, it does not provide for the full range of powers and functions set out in the 1856 Act. As a result, the board of trustees no longer has a legal basis to carry out its functions. There will be no material change to how navigation is managed as a result of these amendments. The reinstatement of the legal basis for the functions will simply provide for the continuing management of the navigation, which is currently being undertaken by Galway City Council on behalf of the trustees. I look forward to hearing the views of Members. I hope everyone is happy with the process that has taken place so far to get the Bill to this point.

Denise Mitchell (Dublin Bay North, Sinn Fein)
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I welcome this legislation. It is a really progressive step. I thank the Minister of State and his officials. I take the opportunity to commend both the Association of Irish Local Government, AILG, and the Local Authority Members Association, LAMA, on all the work they have done as representatives of the voice of councillors. They have kept this issue on the Minister of State's agenda for many years. While I have the opportunity, I also thank my party representative, Councillor Joanna Byrne, who sat on the Minister of State's working group on this issue.

In 2017, Sinn Féin Councillor Danielle Twomey wrote to the then Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Eoghan Murphy, to ask him to review the legislation that prevented councillors taking maternity leave after she was told that she would have to resign her seat if she took six months' maternity leave after giving birth to her child. It has taken us five years to get to this point but there have been no delays since the pre-legislative scrutiny. I commend the Minister of State and his Department on that. I hope this legislation is treated with the same urgency going forward. It is to be hoped that councillors who give birth will be able to avail of this legislation in 2023. I hope that they see the full benefit of this legislation and do not have to endure the same experiences as previous female councillors.

Section 1 of this Bill is pretty straightforward. It deals with the amendments to the Maternity Protection Act 1994 by deeming councillors as employees of local authorities for the fixed term for which they are elected, barring a few exemptions. This will mean that councillors are treated the same as any other woman seeking to avail of maternity leave. This is a huge, positive step in the right direction. Section 2 of the Bill amends the Local Government Act 2001 by inserting a new section 19A, subsection (3) of which allows for a temporary substitute if a councillor wishes to take leave in full due to maternity, illness or any other issue, in good faith, with the views of the councillor being taken into account before nominations are put forward to the broader council body. This is a positive step. It is positive to see that the wishes of the councillor who is taking leave are given full consideration before appointing a substitute. It is also a significant step that a councillor who is ill for a period can opt for a temporary substitution under this new section.

To be honest, I cannot see any issue with this Bill. I hope it progresses through both Houses with ease. The fact that it has taken us until 2022 to facilitate councillors seeking to take maternity leave is a shame. It is something for which all parties in this House have campaigned for years. We are all aware of the need to remove as many barriers as possible for people wishing to seek election. I hope this results in a higher percentage of female candidates in the next local elections than there were in the last.

During pre-legislative scrutiny, the Minister stated that he would publish the regulations needed for the administrative end of the temporary substitute element of this Bill alongside it. We have not yet seen those yet but I hope he will publish them sooner rather than later in order that we can get a concrete idea of what we are endorsing and for this Bill to pass all Stages. The joint committee recommended that where an elected member decides not to avail of a temporary substitute, a mechanism can be put in place to enable the elected member to vote remotely. This is somebody who is not availing of the substitute but may, as the Minister of State said, may be at home recovering after giving birth. We need to put a provision in place that they can vote remotely at home. This is very fair, given that the voting record of elected representatives is usually a talking point when the next election arises. I am not sure whether there is any legal reason why this cannot happen but if there is, we should address it here and now. The committee also recommended that where an elected member opts for administrative support instead of taking full maternity leave, the salary should be reflective of the experience of the candidate and the responsibility of the role should meet the living wage requirements. We think it is only fair that anybody taking up the role of administrative support for a councillor has a wage that reflects that fact.

The development of a departmental circular that outlines a structure for women returning to the workplace after maternity leave should be drawn up with local authorities with the aid of the Minister. This should be reflective of best practices globally and should look at facilities and supports available to councillors when they return, which was recommended by the joint committee. It is not much to ask of local authorities to make facilities available to meet the needs of new mothers. I do not see any reason there should be a delay in organising this. If the Minister of State leads the local authorities on this, they will follow.

I hope the Department is still working to address the other non-pay related issues outlined in the Moorhead report. I understand that the Minister of State previously said that a committee was set up to deal with some of these issues within his Department. I would appreciate it if we were kept updated with its progress. Some of the issues it addressed included tailored training for councillors and administrative supports for all councillors. We need to see some really workable proposals around paternity leave and family friendly working hours.

The Minister of State will agree that there is probably much more to be done. This Bill is very welcome, however. I hope we see it enacted with all sections commenced as soon as possible.

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Acting Chair for the opportunity to speak on this very important legislation. It drives me mad sometimes, and it is very often the case, that we sit in the Chamber late on a Thursday afternoon to discuss what is very much a woman's issue.

I understand that the Minister of State is not responsible for scheduling this debate. I intend no criticism of him, but it always seems like we end up here on a Thursday during what is, effectively, the graveyard shift. I hope we might be able to find a more appropriate time and use it as a showcase for issues that only affect women. We do not like being consigned to the graveyard shift. I say that just in case the Minister of State thinks we do not mind.

I support the objectives of this Bill. I sincerely thank the six councillors who gave their time to the working group. As we are here discussing the demands on councillors' time, this was another demand. They did fantastic work. I particularly want to thank my colleague, Councillor Joanna Byrne, who, along with her colleagues, put her heart and soul into getting this right and making sure it was done correctly.

There is no doubt that the passing of this Bill will be a significant improvement for elected representatives and their children and families. I will probably be a bit grandiose in making the following point, but it will be an improvement for the democratic process as a whole. For many years, Sinn Féin has been campaigning for improved conditions and benefits for our county and city councillors. One of our core demands during this time was maternity leave and structures that would facilitate remote working and assistance for public representatives. It has been known for some time that the lack of maternity leave and an effective system for supporting public representatives who take leave after the birth of a child is a barrier to women standing for election; it just is. I was a union official for many years, and it goes against everything I believe and hold true that there is strong legislation such as the Maternity Protection Act 1994 from which any person is excluded, much less somebody who undertakes a public role. We should move in the direction - and I am glad we are - where all workers have the benefit, regardless of what their job is, of the Maternity Protection Act 1994.

The difficulties that were faced by the Minister, Deputy McEntee, in arranging maternity cover, shone a spotlight on the failings of the political system when it comes to supporting women before, during and after pregnancy. Granted, a solution was arrived at in the Minister's case but it was a bespoke solution that was on an as-and-when-required basis, which is not helpful and which sends a poor message out to any young woman who is looking at this. When you become pregnant, you are starting a family and then it is discussed in the news as something which is awkward, which could potentially cause a constitutional crisis and about which we have to have a lot of discussion and column inches. That sends a bad message. I hope that any young woman who is considering a career in politics will tune in and see that there is broad support for the supports being put in place for women.

We are looking at the introduction of workable maternity leave for council representatives, as well as scope for mechanisms such as the co-option of temporary substitutes and remote working. That is welcome. It is a shame it has taken this long to get this legislation to where it is. Notwithstanding that, however, it is extremely welcome. We need to start looking at how we can extend it out to every person. There should be a facility for maternity leave and time off to be available to all public representatives.

The support, understanding and goodwill in the context of delivering maternity leave for public representatives has not always been there. I want to reference the treatment of my party president, Deputy McDonald, when she was an MEP and had the audacity to take a very short amount of time off post pregnancy. Many newspaper articles were written at the time criticising her attendance rate in the European Parliament. This was criticising a woman for taking a tiny amount of maternity leave, which every other woman in the State would have a legal and lawful entitlement to do. I will not forget how many women's right organisations and NGOs remained silent at the time. I hope they will reflect on their silence and the fact that it spoke volumes. We heard it and young women who were watching heard it. That was then and this is now. It is welcome to see moves to provide protected maternity leave and the relevant supports for councillors.

I want to finish by asking the Minister of State not to waste any time in publishing the regulations that will allow for the provision of administrative support to elected representatives who do not opt for temporary substitutes. I refer here to the provision of remote voting.

I again voice my support for the objectives of this Bill. I commit myself and my party to working with the Minister of State to ensure that it will be enacted as soon as possible.

Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein)
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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.

Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
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On behalf of the Labour Party, I welcome the Bill. I commend the Minister of State on all the work that has been done on its provisions and on the engagement and consultation with the different groups involved. In my role as vice chair of the women's caucus, I am appreciative of the consultation with our members. We had long expressed a desire to see provision made for maternity protection for women representatives in local government. As the Chair of the Joint Committee on Gender Equality, I am glad to see this Bill being introduced. I acknowledge the other members of the joint committee, including Deputy Cronin. They will also welcome this Bill because it gives affect to recommendation 23(a) of the Citizens' Assembly on Gender Equality. The assembly recommended to us that family friendly practices for all representatives elected to public office should be improved by "making maternity, paternity and parental leave available to all elected representatives, including Ministers". It is welcome, therefore, to see this legislation coming forward and, like others, I hope for its speedy passage.

The Minister of State referred to the consultation and the groups with which he had worked on this legislation. It is good to acknowledge the cross-party group of councillors, the AILG and the stakeholders working on women's rights and equality issues, namely, the NWCI, See Her Elected and Women for Election. I commend the great work being done by those groups in seeking to increase the levels of representation of women in politics at national and local level. As a member of the Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights previously, I authored a 2009 report on women's participation in politics in which we coined the phrase "the five Cs". The latter has been used quite extensively since then in expressing, in a clear way, the obstacles faced by women in engaging in more active and more equal participation in public life.

The five Cs are that women tend to have a lack of confidence compared with male counterparts, we tend to have a lack of cash in comparison with men, and this is being addressed through gender pay gap legislation, and there is also an old boys culture throughout politics that holds women back. In addition to those three Cs of confidence, cash and culture, a fourth C stands for childcare. In this regard, we again see a lack of support in childcare and maternity provision as being a major factor, as the Minister of State said, in preventing women's career progression through political Iife. We also identified a fifth C, because those four Cs could be said to exist in all careers and professions and that they hold women back. The fifth C in the context of political life represents candidate selection procedures. We recommended in 2009 that this matter should be addressed through the introduction of gender quota legislation. This recommendation, I am glad to say, was adopted in 2012, as colleagues will all be aware. We now have a 30% gender quota, which is due to rise to 40%. That will happen in the next general election. This quota only applies to general election candidacy and only to political parties in requiring them to select at least 30% of their candidates of each gender. That will rise to 40% at the next general election. This quota, which was the subject of some controversy when it was first introduced in 2012, has been effective. We saw a significant increase, from 16% to 22%, in the number of female Deputies in the Dáil after the first general election in which it applied, namely, that held in 2015.

Unfortunately, some stagnation has occurred since, as the Minister of State will be aware. I refer to the 2020 general election. My election to the Dáil last summer meant that we reached the dizzy heights of 23% of Deputies being women. This is still far too low. This is the highest number we have ever had of women representatives in public life, with 37 out of 160 Deputies being women, but it is still far too low. As the Minister of State will be well aware, we stand at about 100 in the world rankings in the Inter-Parliamentary Union of women's representation in political life. We clearly need to do more to address the other four Cs to which I refer. What I am saying in a roundabout way is that I welcome this legislation because it addresses one of the five Cs, namely, the childcare issue, at local government level. We are all conscious that local elections can often form an important pipeline into national politics. We are also aware that there are far too few women involved at local government level. The Minister of State gave a figure of 24% of women being elected in 2019. At less than a quarter of total representation, this is again far too low.

In the context of quotas, not only did the citizens' assembly recommend the extension of maternity and other forms of parental leave to elected representatives, it was also very clear about its wish to see the gender quota extended beyond general elections to local, Seanad and European Parliament elections. This is covered in recommendation 20. The Joint Committee on Gender Equality, with which the Minister of State's Department has engaged - and we are very appreciative of the level of engagement from across the Government - will be publishing its report on 15 December. We will be making recommendations on constitutional change in keeping with the citizens' assembly recommendations 1 to 3, inclusive.

We are clearly seeking to address unequal representation of women across many different areas of life and not just in public life and politics. This legislation is very much in keeping with the recommendations of the citizens' assembly on politics, albeit that we still do not have the quote extension to local elections. My request, in the context of recommendation 20, is that the Minister of State would consider the possibility of introducing legislation to extend the quota to local elections. This is something with which we have grappled for some time. The women's caucus has also been working on this issue.

Concern has been expressed that there is no direct link between the number of seats filled by parties at local elections and funding. We were able to use such a link in the Electoral (Amendment) (Political Funding) Act 2012 to ensure that a sanction would apply in situations where parties did not fulfil their gender quotas in candidate selection at general elections, with funding being cut by 50%. The same level of direct sanction does not exist in this regard, but it would still be perfectly possible to require, for example, some cut in funding as a result of a failure to meet a quota in local elections as well. I am just putting that out as a possibility because it is something we have deliberated on in the Joint Committee on Gender Equality. This issue has been raised on several occasions by the women's caucus and the citizens' assembly.

To return to the provisions of the Bill, as the Minister of State indicated and as the explanatory memorandum outlines, the purpose of this legislation is twofold. It is to extend maternity protection provisions to those who are officeholders, elected councillors, despite their not being employees. I very much welcome this aspect. Statutory maternity leave will now be provided for local authority elected members. This is the first and very welcome aim. The second, and also very welcome, aim is to enable and provide the option for an elected member absent from local authority, either because of maternity leave or through illness or in good faith for another reason, to nominate a temporary substitute to undertake their duties until their return. This is also welcome. It is something we have discussed and deliberated on for some time. It is one thing to be provided with the facility to take leave, but it is quite another thing to be able to ensure that duties are fulfilled while an officeholder is out on leave.

I am one of the few members of the Oireachtas who had a baby while serving as a Member. I was pregnant with my second daughter when I was elected to the Seanad for the first time in 2007. I recall clearly taking time out from appearing in the Seanad, but being conscious that no support was available, beyond the very welcome Oireachtas crèche, which I did use. It was very helpful that it was available part-time so I could come in for reduced hours to speak on debates in the Seanad. Certainly, though, other supports are clearly necessary. Other colleagues talked about the Minister, Deputy McEntee. It is very positive that she is being facilitated by other Government colleagues. It is certainly necessary, however, that we have a process, a system in place to ensure that Ministers can and do take maternity leave.

I very much welcome the change in Oireachtas procedures now whereby members who go on maternity leave can avail of additional administrative support. This is very welcome. It provides one way in which we see provision being made for public duties to be carried while facilitating a woman in taking necessary leave in the early months following the baby's birth. This is very important. At council level, a somewhat different provision, the temporary substitute proposition, is being put forward in the Bill. This is welcome and practical. It is also practical that it is being presented as an option. Clearly, it is not something that every woman who takes leave may wish to do, but it does exist as an option. Constitutional concerns have been raised.

I looked again at Article 28A of the Constitution. I look at the current provision in section 19 of the 2001 Local Government Act, where there is already provision for co-option. This is constitutionally robust. Article 28A of the Constitution refers to "such directly elected local authorities as may be determined by law". We can as legislators provide for the definition of "casual vacancy", which is precisely what is being done here. We can determine how, by law, how local authorities are elected and what is a local authority that is directly elected.

The Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, stated himself the current provision is clearly not only inadequate, but disrespectful and inappropriate for a woman taking maternity leave who has to seek this convoluted mechanism. The Minister of State put it eloquently, that a female councillor will not need to "go cap in hand" to seek permission to take leave. That is simply not tenable in contemporary society. We need to be offering supports and facilitating women in taking necessary maternity leave. We have moved to a point in society where it is absolutely necessary for us to do this. The temporary substitution provision is a way of doing this and ensuring that a councillor who wishes to do so can ensure that her public duties are undertaken in her temporary absence and that a casual vacancy does not arise as a result.

Section 2 of the Bill makes clear provision for the termination of the co-option in the proposed new section 19A(6). I suppose there might well be concerns raised about whether one could have two parallel representatives. Obviously, we can tease this out on Committee Stage. In section 2 and the proposed new section 19A(6), the Minister of State has made clear provision as to how the co-option or temporary substitution is to be terminated and that covers off that potential for parallel or duplicate representation which might well be raised by those with concerns about the Bill. As I say, we can perhaps have a more precise discussion of that provision on Committee Stage but the termination of the co-option is clearly set out.

The Minister of State has also stated that, for reasons of equality, he is not confining the temporary substitution provision to women taking maternity leave and he is also covering those who need to take leave through illness or in good faith for another reason. We might discuss further on Committee Stage the provision, "in good faith for another reason". How would that work? Would it cover, for example, short absences for a bereavement? Is that envisaged? Does that undermine the clear intent here, which is a gender-equality intent to encourage more women into politics to ensure there are supports for those women who need to take maternity leave while also fulfilling functions as a councillor? We might need to discuss that a little more on Committee Stage.

While this is a welcome Bill and I want to see its speedy progression, of course, as the Minister of State himself has said, there is more to be done to build on this. This Bill refers to one key part of recommendation 23(a) of the citizens' assembly related to maternity leave but recommendation 23(a) also talks about paternity and parental leave. The Minister of State has indicated his intention to review that provision once this Bill is through and that is a sensible way of approaching this. We can look then at how we can extend other forms of parental and paternity leave and parents' leave to elected representatives, obviously, not only at local level but at all levels.

In terms of leave provision, I also want to mention a Labour initiative I put forward in the Seanad that is currently on Committee Stage in the Seanad and was not opposed by Government, that is, the Organisation of Working Time (Reproductive Health Related Leave) Bill 2021. Like the Organisation of Working Time (Domestic Violence Leave) Bill 2020 proposed by Sinn Féin, it would amend the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 by providing for a short and contained period of leave, in our case for women experiencing early miscarriage for whom there is currently no provision in law. We have called for an up-to-20-day period of paid leave for early miscarriage and up to ten days' leave for access to reproductive healthcare treatment. I am conscious the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O'Gorman, has indicated that he is commissioning research on the introduction of provision for early miscarriage leave. There is some progress being made on that. I highlight that as another gap in current provisions for leave, which impacts on women's equal progression in workplaces.

I should say that the impetus for the Organisation of Working Time (Reproductive Health Related Leave) Bill 2021 came from the Irish National Teachers Organisation, INTO, which came to us to say that so many of its members had to take holiday time or sick leave where they had experienced early miscarriage, and that there was a taboo around this. Clearly, a large number of primary school teachers being women, the INTO felt this was a gender-equality issue and approached me about bringing forward legislation on it. It has had a long genesis. There is clearly a real need there to ensure that women enduring early miscarriage have some provision made through our workplace entitlements and workplace laws.

Finally, to return to the five Cs, there is a range of measures that need to be adopted to ensure greater representation for women in political life at all levels. This Bill forms an important part of the package of measures that are necessary. I very much welcome its introduction and look forward to working with the Minister of State to ensure its speedy passage, together with all the other recommendations of the citizens' assembly that we want to see implemented too.

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I love my job because being a Deputy can have an impact. I am particularly excited to talk about legislation that will have a serious impact. Put simply, the Bill will allow for councillors in local government to take maternity leave for the very first time but the added benefit of it is that it will encourage more women into politics.

I am a member of the Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage that has been scrutinising this legislation and I am often struck that I am the only female Deputy on that committee. When we met as a select committee without my colleague Senators, Senators Seery Kearney, Fitzpatrick and Moynihan, I become the only female voice in those discussions. It serves as a visual reminder of how under-represented women are in this Chamber and in council chambers across the country.

While we have more women in the Dáil than ever before, it is still not enough. This legislation will tackle one of the prevailing inequalities that keeps women away from a career in politics, and that is maternity leave. Given the obvious career path for any aspiring female politician is to stand for local elections first and to learn the trade in a council chamber, this is a real opportunity to make local government more attractive to women. It is also the first step in proving that local government is inclusive by facilitating maternity leave for councillors.

I commend the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, his advisor, Ms Laura Mannion, and my Fine Gael colleague, Councillor Lorraine Hall, on all the work they have done on this in addition to their departmental officials. Creating a conversation and, more importantly, a legislative framework and now putting it into action is real change.

The Minister of State has worked hand in hand with the AILG and LAMA, the council representative organisations that have fed views of councillors from the ground into this process too. The Minister of State had engagement also with the group, Women for Election, the cross-party representative body of female councillors which Councillor Hall is on and the cross-representative body of female Oireachtas Members too. I commend the Minister of State on that level of engagement and collaboration and on the tireless work that all of those groups are doing to bring about change and to amplify the voices of women in politics. We need that, because women make up only 24% of council chambers and 22% of this Chamber.

The Minister of State previously described it as a cultural change and that is absolutely what we need when it comes to politics. At a local level, three out of four councillors are men, which is not representative of Irish society.

See Her Elected is an organisation doing incredible work in supporting women who are interested in standing for local elections. It is a positive, energetic and engaged group. I hope they do not mind me saying that what they have to say is utterly depressing. They told me that we still have a local authority with only one female councillor. The statistics and the stories that they have told me are absolutely depressing. I do not mean any disservice to the work that local authorities are doing but that has to change.

One of the most important things we can do to make sure that council chambers are welcoming spaces is introduce maternity leave, as the Minister of State is doing now. Right now, young women thinking about starting a family do not fit in politics. They would not have access to maternity leave and that is a basic human right. In today's world, it should not be progressive to provide workers with maternity leave but in this case it is, and I welcome that wholeheartedly.

I am very glad to hear about the €230 a week that will go towards administrative support for women on maternity leave. I believe the allowance is also extended to those on illness leave. This is a very welcome move. It is great that illness leave has been included in the Bill because it is something that, unfortunately, many of us may require in the event of long-term illness. At present various local authorities treat councillors who need to take time off due to illness differently. This is not fair and it is not equitable. I am happy that the Bill will change this. It will deliver equity and fairness and standardise things.

A very important part of the Bill is the resolution to have a temporary substitute co-opted by the local authority in the case of maternity leave or extended leave if the councillor so chooses. This substitution comes to an end when the maternity leave or the illness leave ends. This has been handled very well in the legislation. There is no ambiguity so there can be no room for disagreement in respect of people who want to stay in the roles when the leave comes to an end. This has been dealt with adequately.

I have some questions which I also raised during pre-legislative scrutiny. They are with regard to how the co-option process will work. Will it be the same as the current situation whereby the name of the councillor goes to a full local authority meeting for ratification? I know it is a formality but, ultimately, because of ruling groups there is an opportunity for people to be overruled. This would not be in the spirit of the legislation.

The legislation is written in such a way that the nomination for substitution is made by the political party. I ask all political parties to respect the wishes of the women taking maternity leave. If a woman is replaced by a direct competitor at the whim of her party, it will not make maternity leave a less stressful time. I ask political parties to consider the wishes of anybody going on leave, including illness leave, in this situation. I know there are some people, including Councillor Joanna Tuffy in my area, who have been vocal in expressing reservations that this could be abused to undermine local democracy. This is exactly why we need the elected person and not the party to be the designator of the substitute.

The Bill is very innovative and ground-breaking. If the Minister of State will excuse the pun, it is overdue. I hope we will look back in years to come and see how it has improved not only the working conditions for women at local government level but also representation of women in politics at local and national level. That would be a true impact. At present one in four councillors is a woman. If we double that figure to two in four, it will be a long and lasting change. That has to be the goal if our democracy is to be truly representative.

It would be remiss of me while we are debating legislation on maternity leave at local level, not to mention that we still do not have provisions regarding maternity leave for women elected to the Dáil or Seanad. This is not a matter that will go away. We cannot delay any longer on this. We need to deliver for women and their families at all levels of politics, whether that is a local council, national government or the Cabinet as we have seen recently.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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I am amused at the thought that electoral officers in any political party could possibly contemplate promoting a competitor even during maternity leave.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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They would never do such a thing.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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No, they would not. I could not believe it myself. I call Deputy Ryan to give us the view from Monasterevin.

Patricia Ryan (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Bill. It is long overdue that we are making provision for maternity leave and maternity benefits for county councillors. The Bill also provides for the possibility of the co-option of a temporary substitute for an elected member who takes maternity leave or is absent due to illness. The Moorhead report looked at this issue and arising out of the report, a subgroup was convened to examine the issue further. I commend the work of this group, which comprises six female councillors, five of whom were nominated by each of the main parties in local government as well as an independent councillor. Councillor Joanna Byrne from Louth County Council participated in this work on behalf of Sinn Féin. The group met on a number of occasions and the Bill we see today is a result of the work it has been doing.

We in Sinn Féin welcome the Bill as a positive step forward. It is something we have been seeking for many years. The absence of maternity leave has been a significant barrier to women seeking election. It has also been an area of concern for those already elected who have had to juggle the care of a new baby with the expected level of service from the public. The committee also commented that where an elected member decides not to avail of a temporary substitute, administrative support should be available and remote voting should be made possible.

The pandemic encouraged many councils to explore online and hybrid meetings, including in my county, Kildare. We need to see funding made available by central government to allow all local authorities to bring their technology into the 21st century. There has been a long-running battle in Kildare to have meetings broadcast and recording facilities made available. This needs to become a priority. As well as improving transparency, it will improve public knowledge and increase interest in local politics.

We also need to ensure elected representatives have access to appropriate breastfeeding facilities. Recently at Kildare County Council we had a cross-party motion seeking a code of practice for employers to ensure councillors are able to participate fully in local government. It is clear we need to go further. The Government must also ensure maternity leave rights are extended to Members of both Houses of the Oireachtas and officeholders in advance of the next general election. There is little point in gender quotas if we do not address the issues that make women think twice before putting themselves forward as representatives.

Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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It is quite shocking that we are only introducing maternity leave for politicians in 2022 and it is only at local level. We still need to address Senators and Deputies. Earlier today, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, commended this country on our progress in facilitating women to advance in employment. Unfortunately, looking around the room, she could not the same of our public representation. Women make up less than a quarter of the Deputies in the Dáil and less than a quarter of the councillors on local authorities across the country.

If we want to increase the number of women in politics, we need to identify the barriers to female participation and work to remove them. The lack of any maternity or paternity provisions for public representatives is one very glaringly obvious barrier. It denies the country strong female political candidates because many of them feel unable to progress a career in politics due to the structural barriers in their way. I welcome the Bill and the opportunity to discuss it. As the Minister of State is aware, I progressed a Private Members' Bill which sought to bring in many of the changes that will be made possible by this legislation.

The Bill before us brings some necessary reforms but it falls short of what is required to make being a public representative more accessible not only to women but to people from minority groups and people with disabilities. This morning at the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Disability Matters, we discussed the many barriers blocking disabled people from running for election. These include the extra costs of disability, the unavailability of Irish Sign Language interpreters or facilities, the major issue of a lack of personal assistants and inaccessible meeting venues, information and transport. The list goes on. The Bill is a wasted opportunity to bring in far-reaching reforms in advance of the 2024 elections.

The Government's report on reforms for local authority elected members, the Moorhead report, has numerous recommendations which could have been included in the Bill. The Citizens' Assembly on Gender Equality also made recommendations that could have been incorporated into the Bill. In essence, the Bill addresses the issue around seeking maternity leave and providing for a person to be temporarily co-opted. This is welcome but in terms of leave, the Bill does less than what I proposed in my Bill. That the Government, with the resources available to it, its working group and headline grabbing press releases, is doing less than what I was able to do speaks volumes about the level of ambition.

The changes that allow a councillor to avail of maternity leave are obviously very welcome. Under the 2001 Act, a councillor would have to seek permission to go on leave for illness or a good faith reason. This is clearly unacceptable and does not even acknowledge the fact that a councillor may ever seek maternity leave. The Bill addresses this and essentially treats the councillor as an employee for the purposes of entitlement to maternity leave. However, the proposals stop there, whereas my Bill permitted councillors to apply for leave under the same conditions as local authority staff for maternity, adoptive and parental leave.

It is both disappointing and short-sighted that the Bill does not include provision for adoptive and parental leave. Adoptive leave gives 24 weeks' leave to one parent of the adopting couple or a parent who is adopting alone, while parental leave allows parents to take up to 26 weeks' unpaid leave to spend time looking after their children who are under 12. Both of these are standard leave arrangements that are open to workers but not councillors. These types of leave not only recognise the diversity of family life and the issues that may unfortunately arise, but they are also gender neutral.

The Bill does nothing for partners. Any recognition of the needs of women councillors is great, especially if it facilitates more women entering local politics, however, the Bill reinforces the role of women as the primary care giver. The types of leave men can apply for are excluded and this does not send out the right message.

Any councillor needing leave for adoption or caring for a seriously ill child will have to seek permission for it and will not be entitled to the co-opted replacement. The Bill is supposed to be about being family friendly and encouraging more people to enter politics. In that context, these are glaring omissions. This is made worse by the fact that I was able to include these provisions in my Bill. For the benefit of those watching this debate, my Bill was developed by Dr. Richard Scriven, my parliamentary assistant, and me together with the Office of Parliamentary Legal Advisers, which was probably fewer than ten people, and we were able to come up with more wide-ranging reforms than in the Government's Bill. I ask the Minister of State to see how he can include measures for adoptive and parental leave.

We know councillors will be entitled to maternity benefit by virtue of their social protection classification. However, in the case that an individual is solely or primarily employed is as a councillor, will the local authorities be directed to treat the individual the same as employees, by topping up the payment to match the income? I realise issue is under the remit of the Department of Social Protection, but it interacts with the Bill and it would be useful to obtain clarification on this matter.

The measures in section 2, enabling co-option, is very welcome and brings public representation in line with other forms of work where temporary replacements are a standard practice, however, there are some issues with the suggested process. Under the Bill, councillors will have very little say over who will be co-opted in their place. Their political party, if they belong to one, and fellow councillors would instead decide that. In its pre-legislative scrutiny report, the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage recommended that the person going on leave would have "... greater control over the decision of their substitute ... [this may include] the ratification of a substitute not being subject to a vote of the full Council". It also stated this "... may create stressful situations for the elected member while on maternity or illness leave, should their temporary substitute be a direct competitor, for example." This is a reality in political party branches that must be acknowledged. Unfortunately, parties often feature in the news for allegations of bullying. The Minister of State may be familiar with an example from my constituency of at least one Fine Gael councillor leaving the party because of bullying. In this context, there needs to be greater safeguards to protect the preferences of the person seeking leave. We all know the amount of personal energy and time that goes into securing a seat - anyone elected has the right to have his or her position respected.

Separately, the housing committee also points out that the co-option process needs to remain optional, and if a person decides not to avail of it, the individual should be able to vote remotely. The pandemic showed how it is possible to have remote meetings. That provision should not be an issue to implement at local authority level, although it would be difficult in the Dáil or the Seanad.

There are issues that need to be addressed in the Bill and I would encourage the Minister of State to look at the specifics in the pre-legislative scrutiny report, as well as the options for enabling elected members to avail of adoptive and parental leave. The Moorhead report also contains recommendations on childcare that could have been include in the Bill. The lack of childcare facilities available to councillors is noted in the report. Reference is made to a parenting, or caring, support group being established in local authorities. The group will examine the issues arising in parental-caring support, family-friendly measures should be endorsed by councils and a council policy should be drafted accordingly. I encourage the Minister of State to look at how he can introduce regulations around the provision of childcare by local authorities. Deputy Bacik talked about how much she appreciated the childcare facilities in the Oireachtas.

More broadly, there is a need to reform our systems to encourage and enable more women, disabled people and people from minority backgrounds to run for election. The Bill is too limited in its current form. If the Minister of State relies on other legislation to bring in changes, we all know that will be years away. This means the chance to encourage greater diversity in the 2024 local elections will be missed and, realistically, we are looking at the 2029 elections, which is unacceptable.

The Bill targets local government, but it obviously raises questions about national government. The average percentage of women in parliaments in the OECD is 31.6%. Ireland is almost 10% under that level and we are even further behind some of our European neighbours. The rate is almost 40% in France and almost 50% in Sweden.

Deputies are in a situation similar to councillors in that those seeking maternity leave are basically excused for six months with no provision for remote participation. While I recognise that a Private Members' Bill is being tabled on the matter, it is something that dovetails with this legislation. The Minister, Deputy McEntee, has provided leadership on this issue, but as she begins her second leave, what material difference is there? Is she being accommodated? Yes, but the system itself is not designed, even in the slightest way, to support her or anybody else in the same situation. The Forum on a Family Friendly and Inclusive Parliament, established by the Ceann Comhairle, examined these and related issues. We have a list of recommendations, some of which require Government action, such as a referendum to address remote working and proxy voting.

We must also look at addressing the long, late and unpredictable sitting times. This is in no way conducive to a health family life not only for elected members, but also for the Oireachtas staff. Using this evening's debate as an example, as a Deputy from a rural area, I will not get home until after midnight. It is ironic that this Bill was scheduled during the late Thursday-evening slot. The same was the case for a recent disability committee debate, which has a predominantly female membership, and statements on International Women's Day were taken during the late Thursday-evening slot. This means many Members do not get home until after midnight.

While the Bill is focused on one thing, which is welcome, it raises many more issues that are not being progressed. While little of this is directly under the Minister of State's responsibility, he is part of a government that has the capacity to bring in many of the identified and necessary changes. That is if he is serious about a more inclusive and family-friendly Dáil.

I remember, just after the election, when I started working on legislation for maternity and paternity provisions for elected members, I was told I should focus more on issues that affect ordinary people not politicians. I want to make it clear that having more women at decision making tables is absolutely crucial for better decision making for ordinary people. One does not have to look very far to see the fallout from the consistent absence of women at such tables. The key is in the word "representative". More than 50% of the population is not adequately represented in our Parliament. We are ranked 97th in the world for the percentage of women in the national parliament. By way of a really depressing example, there is only one female Deputy in all of Cork. The largest county in the country has one woman representative. Cork actually has six times more "Michaels" than women representing it. Michaels are, literally, six times more represented than women in Cork. We need more women in politics. Another example is that currently there are no women Deputies on the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine. We all know that one of the biggest barriers to women in politics in Ireland is the selection of candidates, which comes down to political parties. There was a recent protest outside Leinster House, I think it was on 50:50 representation by 2050. I am a member of the only political party in the country that has reached and surpassed that target. There are more female Deputies in the Social Democrats than male. We have to look at this and ask why that is the case. We are not entirely sure. Perhaps part of it is because there are two female leaders. Crucially, it is because the party is so new. It is six years old. I am not pointing fingers at particular political parties, but where there is an old institution, there tends to be an institutional aversion to change. This is seen time and again when it comes to elections. Even with a quota, political parties will say they will put a certain person in the ticket to meet the quota, but they are blatantly there to sweep up votes in a different part of the constituency for the chosen male candidate, who is supposed to get the seat. It needs to change within the parties. Legislative measures and gender quotas will help, but until political parties provide a more welcoming face for women, we will not see the kind of equality and participation that we desperately need.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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I welcome the introduction of the Bill and I commend the Minister of State, his officials, the Department, the working group and the Oireachtas committee on the work they have done on this. It is a poor reflection that 100 years after the commencement of our democracy, we are only introducing this now. To promote this sort of political inclusivity and accessibility, we have to make this Parliament and, indeed, local authorities more accessible, amenable and available for people of all walks of life, not just men and women.

We must also do so for persons from different ethnic backgrounds, especially given the considerable influx of migrants to this country over the past 30 years. I am very proud to represent a county which, back when I was mayor in 2008, had 105 nationalities represented within it. That diversity leads to diversity of thinking and systems. If local authorities and places such as this are not able to change their ways, they become cold places for those individuals who feel cut off from their own local authorities or from the Parliament. Thus, it is important we change.

While I welcome this Bill, we still have nothing permanent set up for this House or the Seanad. Additional supports have been put in place and an ad hoc arrangement has twice been made for a member of the Cabinet, but this is not good enough. We need to amend the Constitution appropriately in order that we can legislate for such matters appropriately and get it done. With respect to the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, I do not expect a Minister of State to do it. However, I expect the Cabinet, given the importance of this issue, to actually take action and do it.

There are several, most likely important, constitutional changes this Government can make on foot of recommendations from both the constitutional convention and these Houses. They could be run on the same day in order to bring the cost down. A constitutional amendment which relates to politicians will probably not get a considerable turnout. If we put it in with something more meaningful for the general public, let us hope we can make those sorts of changes.

I complimented the Minister of State for the work that has been done. I have been a proud Member of this House for 12 years and I was a councillor for almost seven years before that. I cannot believe it has been 18 years since I was first elected to local government. All of us know politics is not an easy business. All of us know the sort of courage and determination it takes to put one's name on a ballot paper. I was just thinking about how I was completely oblivious as to what lay in front of me that evening - I think it was Saturday, 15 May 2004 - when I got a phone call which changed my life. Three and a half weeks later, I became a councillor.

I can assure the House that if I had been a 26-year-old woman at that time, my life most likely would have taken a similar course to that of the person I have been with for almost 27 years. I can absolutely be assured that in such circumstances - if I had a family at the same time as my wife - it would have interfered with my ability to run in elections; most likely, with my ability to get elected to this House and, potentially, even the local authority. That is not right. We have made very positive steps in the past number of years towards equality but there are still a few barriers to go.

Other Members have mentioned that 562 women candidates ran in the last local elections. This was a very modest increase or improvement of 3% on the position at the previous local elections. We need to make bigger strides and steps. Our population is rising. I know the Minister of State's Department will undoubtedly start to look at local authority boundaries and say there is under-representation and over-representation, as was the case when the then Minister, Mr. Hogan, did it back in 2012. That was a welcome modernisation of our democracy at local level. We are coming closer to the area where we would consider that again. It gives us an opportunity to re-evaluate local authorities and perhaps add 50 or 100 councillors to the national mix, thereby affording an opportunity for new, fresh thinking and faces to come into local government. That is to be welcomed.

I will talk about certain aspects of the Bill about which I have slight concerns. The inclusion by the Minister of section 1(a)(ii)(III), which provides that "a member of a local authority shall be deemed to be an employee of the local authority employed under a contract of service for a fixed term", could have an unintended consequence. Inadvertently, what the Minister has done is to help 900-odd councillors to apply for a mortgage. Up to now, they have had to assume the services manager within the local authority would sign a piece of paper to say the councillor was a fixed-term employee because, technically, the councillor was not and the services manager did not have to do so. That is a barrier in itself. When I was a member of LAMA in approximately 2009, it made that recommendation and to see it included now is a welcome step in the right direction. That sort of thing needs to be considered by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage because it is important. It is not just about the salary of a councillor, which has been dramatically improved following the Sara Moorhead report. We have to recognise that it is a career for many people. When one looks at the tenure of some councillors, one sees it is a career. It should be a career. It is not the third division of Irish political or democratic football. We are all on the same level because we are all equally important. Without local government, government would not function properly.

I have considerable concerns, which have been voiced by Deputies Higgins and Bacik, with regard to temporary absences and the party from which the member was elected then having the say. What if there is a scenario in which the individual leaves due to bullying? It has happened. More than 100 members of local authorities, to the best of my knowledge, have resigned since the last local election. Some of those have cited bullying. It is not a party political issue but is specific to this Bill. Does it go back? Should it go back? Should the individual not have the say as to who should be the co-optee, especially if it is only maternity leave? I say "only" maternity leave but if the individual is only taking six months or thereabouts such as in the case of a short-term illness, it is not right. That needs to be changed. There must be the same rules for a non-party member. What if the non-party member joins a party? There has to be equity. If we equalise it for one, we should equalise it for the other. It should be the choice of the councillor, rather than the party. On a very regular basis, we debate matters in this House that are then placed on the agenda of the Oireachtas to be agreed without debate. If we are legislating for such matters, we should legislate for the councillor to nominate a replacement and that person, subject to certain criteria, to be the councillor's replacement without debate.

There is a considerable disparity between the standing orders of various local authorities. The Minister of State knows that as well as I do. It is important we recognise that fact and put it into the legislation in order that the lines cannot be read between or through because they will be. Local authorities, especially longer-standing members of local authorities, might not necessarily like being dictated to by this House. However, in the interests of democracy, the person who is elected should choose his or her replacement and it should be accepted by the local authority. Going back to the 2004 Government-----

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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Thank you, Deputy.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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The point I am making is that it should not be a matter for the local authority; it should be a matter for the individual.

Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael)
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I welcome the Minister of State and his officials to the House. I very much welcome the Local Government (Maternity Protection and Other Measures for Members of Local Authorities) Bill 2022. It is very welcome legislation. I concur with my colleague, Deputy Farrell, who spoke about the replacement of the person who is elected. It should be up to the elected person to nominate whomever he or she - more than likely she - is. That is important. I ask the Minister of State to look at that because, on occasions when political parties get involved, it can become very messy and political and can often take the good out of what the Minister of State is doing here.

I know it is very important that council organisations, Oireachtas committees and other organisations thread into this legislation. It is very important that the Minister took a wide range of views from many organisations and people within the House and outside of it. I refer to the council representative organisations, in particular, because I know they have been looking for this for quite some time. I know it has taken years for us to get to this point.

In fairness, I was never a member of a local authority, so I will not speak with any experience of being one. Since Deputy Peter Burke's appointment as Minister of State, he has looked after councillors with this recommendation and also with other recommendations from the Moorhead report on remuneration, salaries and PRSI contributions for members of local authorities. Not only has the Minister of State talked the talk, he has walked the walk. That is welcome. I hope that members of local authorities appreciate the strides he has made over the last while.

I have been a Member of this House since 2002. Since I became a Member, we have talked about more female participation in elected office. There is no quick fix to this. We had the quota systems and the requirement that political parties will have to have more female candidates standing in the next general election than in the previous one, in 2020. I encourage political parties to get as many female candidates as possible for the local elections. It is a great grounding and start for any person to garner interest in politics. It has been difficult for parties to get candidates for local elections over the years. I hope the changes the Minister of State has made relating to remuneration will help parties to get more female candidates. When I approached a number of female candidates to stand for the party over the years, one of the biggest issues was social media abuse. Another issue was that they had children or they may have been starting off in life and wanted to have children. They saw that as a barrier. We should not have barriers if people want to stand for public office.

Other Deputies spoke about people from diverse backgrounds and people of colour standing for public office. Many people of colour from diverse backgrounds do not have the confidence to stand for local elections, European elections, general elections, Seanad elections or whatever else. It is important that we remove the barriers for them and make politics and political life a welcoming place for them. With the increased participation of women in this House, there is a different, balanced, open debate, and maybe subjects that we would not have debated previously are now being talked about. Having these debates in the House is telling in terms of how this country has changed socially and in every other way.

Public office is a difficult career but we often make it difficult for ourselves. I came into politics when I was elected 20 years ago, at 29 years of age. Deputy Farrell spoke about being 26 when he stood in the local elections. I have a fair idea of the answer I would get if I tried to get a 29-year-old woman to stand for the Dáil or local elections. They have careers and they may or may not want to have a family. They see the challenges and barriers.

I know the Minister of State is making reforms and wants to make further changes. I hope the Government supports him in the further changes that he wants to make. There have been good ideas and an exchange of views between all the political parties. As a country, we should be proud of our politicians. We have fantastic male and female politicians from all political parties. We might not always agree with their views, but many of them are seeking to do good for their community and so on. I had the privilege of being a Minister of State. I went around the country and saw the fantastic leaders of local communities across the country. Some may want to stand for political office. They should be encouraged to stand. It should be sold to them as a fantastic career. Some want to make a career of it. The abuse that people get on social media is unbelievable.

I listened to the debate about the refugee crisis and Ukrainian crisis on the radio this morning. Anyone who asks about refugees or the Ukrainian crisis is now seen as racist. An articulate lady was on the radio this morning. She made an articulate point that we should have a grown-up conversation about where we are going and the issues we have, so that we are not seen as racist if we raise issues. That is the way politics has gone. People are either for or against matters. There is no longer a middle ground. I think people do not get involved in politics because the middle ground is disappearing quickly, which is sad. If women with children receive media abuse, they do not only feel it themselves, but their families feel it for them.

It is sad that there are so many reasons that specific women do not get involved in politics. When the Minister, Deputy Helen McEntee, first went on maternity leave, I did not think it was the perfect fix for another Minister to have to pick up the slack. I have no doubt that Deputy McEntee is still in tune with what is happening in the Department of Justice. I have no doubt that any female Minister who goes on maternity leave would continue to listen to the news and what is happening. We need a more permanent structure for women in the Dáil to take maternity leave. I do not know what that would involve but I think we should be more grown-up, have that conversation and not be afraid of the changes we can make. I believe this Bill is a start and there will be greater things to come.

I thank the Minister of State and his officials for bringing this important legislation before the House.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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I am not supposed to talk about these things but I have a passion for local government. I was elected 37 years ago. I was fairly young at the time. We have seen much legislation pass in that time. I think what the Minister of State, Deputy Burke, has done is exemplary. It is about strengthening local government. We have to accept that we have appallingly weak local government in many places across the country. Much of the legislation that has passed has distorted the balance between elected members and the executive, to the point that the executive now has the preponderance of authority and power. Many councils have far too many elected members, such that one could not possibly hope to get a consensus on anything. I salute the Minister of State on what he is doing. Long may he keep at it.

Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael)
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Hear, hear.

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Ceann Comhairle for his kind words. I acknowledge the support for the legislation from Deputies across the House. I thank Deputy Mitchell for her support at the joint committee. I will answer her specific questions.

We will have draft regulations ready on Monday and will issue them to the joint committee for consultation and to seek the views of members.

We signed a statutory instrument in 2020 to allow for remote voting. Members of local authorities throughout the country can continue to utilise that. To this day, many councils are using this facility for certain meetings. We obviously had to have a very legally robust statutory instrument at the time because county development plans were being prepared in the midst of the pandemic. Due to the fact that there were voting arrangements, everything which had to be legally sound. I am satisfied that such is the case.

In response to Deputy O'Reilly's points, I appreciate that there is more to do in the context of the Moorehead report. That is why I stated that this is part of the incremental change we are trying to make in order to improve the conditions local authority members operate in across the country. I understand the urgency and the concerns about the debate being held on a Thursday night, a matter which Deputy Cairns also raised. I am hoping that we can proceed with the Bill next week because there are a number of councillors who are about to give birth. One of them is about to do so this week. This House can move mountains at times to try to bring in legislation. I appeal to the Business Committee and Members across the House in that regard. This is a very straightforward Bill. It has gone through the stress test of passing through all the councillor representative bodies, the council members, the sub-group of female councillors, the joint committee's pre-legislative scrutiny and the representative of the various political parties. It would be great if we could get it finished next week. That is a plea on my part to the Business Committee. I hope Deputies support me on that.

Gender quotas were referred to. Such quotas are a challenge for local authorities. We are trying to incentivise political parties through funding calls to improve the conditions in which they operate. The incentives are in the form of supports for them to get involved in politics. The way the gender quota works in the national Parliament is that political parties are penalised if they do not meet the quotas. This is because they receive State funding for national elections. However, that is not the case for local authority elections. In other words, it is hard to get the stick to pin it on. We must do more work in that regard as we move forward.

Other items are dealt with in the Moorhead report. We will keep the House updated on the work of the group we have looking at them. They are non-pay items in the main. We have been funding calls like trying to have a family friendly toolkit rolled out in all the local authority areas across the country. Again, that is to support the members.

The matter of temporary substitutes was raised. What the legislation provides is very clear, namely, "The local authority shall have regard to the preferred choice (if any) of the member causing the temporary absence". The key here is that the local authority will have to ratify the person who will be the temporary substitute. I would be shocked and appalled if any local authority tried to stop a woman from taking maternity leave or dictate who should substitute for her. That is why we are liaising with political parties about how they do their business to have a policy about this. We need to be supporting women in politics and not be standing in their way in terms of having their choice go forward. The Minister reserves rights to issue standing orders requirements or directions under the legislation. I would hate to think that we might have to do something like this because, having gone around all the local authorities - and I have been around 99% of them now - the will is there. This is being strongly embraced, and I am hopeful that people will respect it.

I have great faith in the local authority system and in our council members, who are doing huge work in very challenging circumstances. As many Deputies pointed out, the issues councillors must now contend with when doing county developments plans are so complex that it is very difficult.

The issue of training was raised. We have worked with the AILG, LAMA and the Office of the Planning Regulator to get more training seminars for councillors in order to assist them in going about their daily duties. They absolutely need that support. As long as I am in this job, I will keep working to try to enhance the role of local councillors. I want to make it more meaningful and ensure that they have more devolved powers. That is what we are trying to do in Limerick, as Deputies will know. We want to ensure there are more powers locally. The changes in that regard are groundbreaking. I am aware that they can be difficult to contend with, but we are working as hard as we can to do these things. We hope that next week, fingers crossed, the system will move in the right direction.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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Congratulations to all involved.