Willie O'Dea (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)

Over 12 months ago I introduced the Maternity Protection (Amendment) Bill 2003 in the Seanad. The Bill has been substantively amended and I am glad to report to the Seanad on the amendments made to the Bill in the Dáil. Fourteen Government amendments were tabled and accepted on Committee Stage in the Dáil and I propose to outline their effect.

Amendments Nos. 1 to 13, inclusive, correct a difficulty with the prior notification an employee wishing to take resumed leave must give to an employer. This became apparent when similar provisions in the Adoptive Leave Bill were being drafted. The text of the Bill as passed by the Seanad, in so far as it relates to the postponement of maternity leave or additional maternity leave, was likely to present a difficulty for employees in the practical application of certain notification provisions. Section 7(4)(c), as passed by the Seanad, compelled the employee to give seven days' prior notice of her intention to resume leave which had been postponed earlier on the hospitalisation of the child. Section 7(9) provided that such resumed leave must commence within seven days of the discharge of the child from hospital. In practice this would have proved impossible for many employees to comply with, as it is usually the case that the discharge of a child from hospital would only become known to the parents on the preceding day or even on the day of discharge, requiring the immediate presence of the mother or father to care for the child at home.

I felt the notification procedures in sections 7(9) and 12(8) required amendment in order to provide more flexibility to employees in this situation. Consequently, amendments Nos. 3 and 9 remove the notification requirements in sections 7(9) and 12 (8) by the deletion of those subsections and the incorporation of a more flexible notification requirement in sections 7(8) and 12(7) respectively.

As a result, employees will be required to notify their employer of their intention to resume the untaken portion of their leave as soon as it is reasonably practicable, but not later than the day on which the leave begins. This gave rise to a number of consequential amendments, mainly to amend existing cross-references which are the subject of amendments Nos. 1, 2, 4 to 8, inclusive, and Nos. 10 to 13, inclusive.