Willie O'Dea (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)

I see the point of the Senator's amendment. However, I am advised that it does not necessarily improve the text. Subsection (1) does more than provide for notification to the employer. To make reference to it in the manner proposed in the amendment does not convey its full content and the proposed construction is contrary to normal drafting convention. The advice is that the subsection is satisfactory as it stands. The adoption of the amendment might bring confusion because the subsection does more than provide for notification to the employer.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Section 8, as amended, agreed to.

NEW SECTION.

Government amendment No. 40:

In page 10, before section 9, to insert the following new section:

9.–Section 16 of the Principal Act is amended–

(a) by the substitution of the following subsection for subsection (1):

'(1) If a woman who has been delivered of a living child (in this section referred to as "the mother") dies at any time before the expiry of the twenty-fourth week following the week of her confinement, the father of the child (if he is employed under a contract of employment) shall be entitled in accordance with this section to leave from his employment for a period ending as follows–

(a) if the mother dies before the expiry of the sixteenth week following the week of her confinement, the period ends, subject to section 16B, at the end of that sixteenth week, and