Willie O'Dea (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)

This is the law. The law in this country is subject to the Constitution. The Supreme Court is often called on to decide what the Constitution means and this is what it means in this context, according to the Supreme Court. I take the Senator's point that it gives a negative aspect to the Bill. If there is no overwhelming legal difficulty in removing it and in view of the fact it is the law anyway, we will examine it.

To go back to what Senator Henry said, we are trying to provide for an either-or situation – either employers provide breastfeeding facilities in the workplace or they do not. I imagine many employees would prefer the option of a break to go away and breastfeed somewhere else if the facilities in the premises in which they work are not adequate. Where breastfeeding facilities are provided, I am totally hostile to the idea of delineating what should be in place in primary legislation. As Members know, we will bring in regulations to deal with all these matters and I will see if we can impose some minimum standards in the regulations.

As I interpret the situation – we might consider some way to tighten it up to provide for this – in circumstances where an employer says he has breastfeeding facilities which are clearly unsuitable or insufficient, the employee can say those facilities are not suitable and choose to avail of option B. The employer is bound by that. That is my interpretation of the situation. If we need to change the wording in any way to make it clear that is our interpretation, I am prepared to look at that.