Willie O'Dea (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)

Section 6(2) of the Bill provides that an employee may request to postpone her maternity leave with effect from a date she selects, but only if the period of maternity leave concerned which she has taken on that date is not less than 14 weeks and that not less than four of those weeks are taken after the end of the week of confinement. The pregnant workers' directive, No. 92/85/EEC, provides for a continuous period of 14 weeks maternity leave to be allocated before and-or after confinement, in accordance with national legislation and-or practice.

The Attorney General's office has advised that the directive does not allow for the splitting of the 14 week maternity leave period. Implementation of the directive may also not have the effect of reducing the level of protection already in existence in member states on the date the directive was adopted. As the Maternity (Protection of Employees) Act 1981 provides that the maternity leave period shall not end earlier after the end of the expected week of confinement, it is not possible to reduce this level of protection.

I was also concerned about this when I looked at it. We consulted the Attorney General's office and were informed that, unfortunately, nothing could be done about it because, under the EU directive, there is provision for the protection of a pregnant employee for a continuous period of 14 weeks from the date of confinement. The advice we have received is that we cannot do anything in domestic legislation which would effectively weaken the protection given in that regard. In this context, splitting the period of leave would be interpreted as a weakening of it.

Accordingly, on the basis of the advice received from the Attorney General's office, it appears that we cannot do anything about this issue. However, we received advice from the Attorney General's office previously on a matter which we are now in the process of amending as a result of further legal advice in the meantime. I will undertake to have some legal experts look at the matter again to see if we can do anything about it.