Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

If somebody wishes to do three months and the other partner in the relationship wishes to take three months, we as a society and as a Government should be able to facilitate that because it is correct that the vast majority of modern fathers want to play an active role in the raising of their children. This should not be a major difficulty. There maternity leave period is six months and there should be options there. This is a proposal that I heard made in the last couple of days and I welcome it.

We have moved into a far better space in this country when it comes to equality but we need to keep moving into the space, to embrace and believe it. The situation in schools needs to change and I concur with all the points Senator Ó Ríordáin articulated in that regard.

The private sector has much to do as well. Not enough is being done in this regard. If the private sector was to embrace this issue of absolute equality, it would be amazing how skilled and fulfilled a workforce there would be. As we head into what hopefully will be a period of growth in our economy, I want to see all citizens with a skill set having that skill set not just properly recognised but properly remunerated. Some 84% of blind and visually-impaired people between the ages of 18 and 64 in this country are unemployed, whereas the European average is approximately 40%. The whole issue of equality is a broad church and this legislation, when it gets over the line, will certainly help in terms of gathering factual statistics and ensuring that those statistics can then be used to change public policy, to change a mindset and to highlight the obvious inequalities that exist. I welcome the legislation and I am glad the Government is not opposing it.