The Minister stated that in 2002, some 29,700 women made applications for maternity leave. The majority of those women wanted to have the time available to them afterwards and they want the right to choose. I am being told that someone in the EU has decided that to change this would remove a right from Irish women and that they must take four weeks before confinement date. Do they not understand we are the mothers and we are talking about our bodies and our babies? Do they not understand we are the best people in association with our doctors to decide when we will take that maternity leave? The only right that has been taken from us is the right to choose.