Feargal Quinn (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. This Bill is also welcome. Senator White has put a significant amount of effort into it. As someone who has run a business and is also a mother, which is not easy, she has a great deal of experience of this matter. I was delighted to hear Senator Moran's reference to a prenatal clinic. My wife and I have five children. With our first child, my wife had the opportunity to attend the late Kathleen O'Rourke for antenatal clinics. Fathers attended on the last day as well to get experience. My wife benefited in the form of pain control through breathing methods.

Senator White has introduced an interesting Bill. Changes may be made on Committee Stage, given everything that has been stated. The Senator has invested her commitment on that basis. The Bill is worthwhile.

People often refer to gender equality, but they forget to mention that this concept also applies to men. In terms of parental leave, we must strike a balance. Ireland is lagging behind in this regard, even compared with our neighbours in the UK. Having an employer who is a parent is a considerable benefit. A manager of one of our supermarkets, Mr. Jerry Twomey, has a wife named Yolanda. He arranged a little initiative - it does not deal with birth as such - whereby parents got the morning of their children's first day of school in September off. This was appreciated by the parents. As he and his wife have four girls, he is aware of the day's importance.

Currently, men do not have the ability to spend as much time with their children at a crucial stage of their development. According to some studies, fathers who take more responsibility for small children are more likely to stay in contact should their families break up at a later stage. From the employers' perspective, I can understand the concerns that they may have with such a Bill. Some have been mentioned. However, if we were to balance out the leave, we would lessen their concern that a woman was more likely to leave her job because of childbirth if she knew that men were entitled to the same leave.

However, we must also be careful about placing too many regulations on business. It is one matter for a large multinational to offer paternity leave, but the effect on a small to medium-sized enterprise, SME, employing five or six people could pose difficulties. These are the sorts of issue that we can address on Committee Stage.

What will this measure cost the taxpayer? Has a cost-benefit analysis been conducted? If more leave days are taken, which is a reasonable assumption, productivity will decrease. Senator White mentioned unemployment but competitiveness must be considered first, as it will attempt to solve the unemployment problem. It is difficult for me to support a Bill through which more costs will be placed on business. More importantly, if more costs are placed on the taxpayer, who is already under significant financial stress, how difficult will that be? Should the Government offer paternity leave just because some private companies offer the same benefit? This fundamental question is worth considering.

If we are going to go down the route of paternity leave, we must ask more questions about its day-to-day functioning. We must bear in mind the situation in other countries where paternal leave is in operation and the lessons they have learned. Listening to Senator O'Brien's comments was interesting. I mean Senator Darragh O'Brien - there are two Senators O'Brien in the House and we must be careful about which one we are speaking.

Some Scandinavian countries have found that there is a low take-up of paternity leave. According to this Bill, fathers and mothers "shall be permitted to share between them the minimum period of maternity or paternity leave." I am unsure as to whether this is the way to go. One of the proposed solutions would be to scrap the transfer of leave between parents. Some claim that this is the only way to encourage men to take up paternity leave. This would be a somewhat drastic measure, but I would be interested in the opinions of other Senators.

In Germany, mothers get bonus weeks of maternity leave if their husbands take a minimum amount of paternity leave, which encourages the uptake of paternity leave. Should we consider doing something similar and offering a bonus? Should we also consider a plain split between maternity and paternity leave? In Iceland, three months are reserved for the mother, three for the father and three for them to decide. On average, fathers only took 103 days leave compared with the 178 days taken by mothers. This approach is more favourable than that of other countries with paternity leave.

Iceland is going even further. Recently, its Government passed legislation for a system of five months maternity leave, five months paternity leave and two months parental leave, which the parents must decide how to use by 2016.

Should we consider this as an example? The Bill is admirable in looking towards real gender equality. I have some reservations but they arise on Second Stage of every Bill. This Bill is very worthy of consideration. It is likely the Minister of State will agree to Second Stage, about which I am delighted, and I encourage her to ensure we can debate it on Committee Stage. I know Senator Mary White has a very open mind on making changes to it to make it a more perfect Bill than it is. The heart and soul of Senator Mary White are in this Bill and we would like to think it will become law. If that means some improvements or changes, then so be it.