Mary White (Fianna Fail)

I do not wish to put a dampener on this again but we may be leaving ourselves open to challenge. I am an employer and I breastfed my daughter for seven and a half months. I accept all one needs is a chair but I am concerned about the conditions. If an employee brought a baby to work, I could imagine them saying that it is not an adequate place for their baby to be kept. I am being realistic. I am talking about the conditions in which the baby is looked after in the interim. If this happened in our company, people would spend the day looking at the baby. We have many staff who have babies and when they bring them in to show them off, the whole place stops. How many work facilities are appropriate for caring for a baby in between breastfeeds? If a person works in the East Wall and lives in Clondalkin, how long would it take to bring the baby in? It would be better to let the person go home and breastfeed there.

Senator Terry made the point about good companies. As an employer, the relationship with staff is mutually beneficial. Employers need staff and staff need employers. I do not see it as a conflicting situation but as one to be faced together. There are companies, however, which would not have the same view. Our company is run by two women and we were very maternalistic for the first ten years but we could not continue to mind everybody.