Mary O'Rourke (Fianna Fail)

Babies need to know there are two people minding them.

The Minister of State has great gumption and he would do well to try to bring about a reconciliation between employers and employees on this matter of paid parental leave. Many people cannot afford to avail of it and to be out of the workforce for that length of time so that they may lay the foundations of a happy child and for themselves.

After having a baby, a woman is quite spent and bothered and while everything may have gone well with the pregnancy, she may feel a little under the weather, may suffer from post-natal depression and may not feel 100%. There is then the worry of leaving the baby with somebody while she goes out to work because she needs the double income. Young people now need double incomes in order to live, pay mortgages and child care. I am speaking from practical experience and I now see my two daughters in-law trying to cope. One works in a bank and received full pay while on leave. Their baby will be seven months old when she goes back to work but she added on unpaid leave. The other works for a private employer who does not provide such a payment. I know the Minister of State will attend to giving paid parental leave because we will be dragged screaming to it quite shortly. We will be the last country in Europe to give paid parental leave as a right.

Force majeure leave allows, in an extreme circumstance, a parent leave work quickly but to be kept on the payroll. One has the right to go back to the position in which one was before one took time off to have a baby. One must not suffer the discrimination of one's job having been given to somebody else and one having to fight one's way back.

It is not so long ago that employees in some sections of the Civil Service had to take a case on this issue, which they won on the basis of the relevant EU directive.

People are by choice having fewer children, but there will come a time when we will desperately need workers. Already the shortage of skilled workers has led to an increase in demand for women in the workforce. This Bill is welcome in so far as it goes but it goes only a few steps. Much more is required.