David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank colleagues. I have listened carefully to the debate and, as usual in this House, it has been constructive, reflective and positive. I am happy to be here to discuss the Parental Leave (Amendment) Bill 2017. I will be speaking to amendments Nos. 1, 2 and 3, which propose to amend section 6 of the Parental Leave Act 1998.

If I brought a Bill before the House, my colleagues would analyse, parse and try to amend it if they thought there were problems with it. I do not apologise at all if Government takes on board a Private Members' Bill and analyses, parses and raises concerns about it. We would be derelict in our duty if we did not do that. It is important we have a debate and that it does not become personalised. If any colleague here has a concern about any legislation, he or she has a responsibility, as does the Government, to raise, highlight and debate that concern in a positive way. I am sure colleagues will bear with me when I outline some of the concerns we had with the legislation. I am not stating that the Government is right or wrong but it is important we debate these issues. That is why I was somewhat disappointed that there was no pre-legislative scrutiny on the Bill. Every time we bring forward primary legislation of any sort, there are implications and what we call unknown unknowns. Senator Bacik and I served together on the justice committee for quite a number of years and I am sure she will agree with me about the value and importance of pre-legislative scrutiny. The latter gives stakeholders an opportunity to have a say. It is quite important that stakeholders, no matter who they are, have a say in a democracy.

IBEC is sometimes equated with big, evil corporations and companies. There is a feeling that business is bad or evil but it is not. Business employs many people and not all businesses are big. There are very small businesses in the SME sector. Big companies can do, take and absorb stuff but small companies that are three, four and five-person operations can sometimes be under substantial pressure. There are a lot of those companies and we also have to listen to what they have to say. It is incumbent on all of us to listen and reflect in a positive way and not to be too negative.

I also want to say that Government has always been, and continues to be, supportive of the principles of parental leave and supports for working parents and families. We all share the goal of supporting parents to reconcile precious family life and work. Senator Gavan has given his personal experience on that and I can share that. I know what he is talking about. We also share the goal of increasing flexibility and choices for working parents. That is crucially important. The Government announced, as part of the 2019 budget, the introduction of a new paid parental leave scheme which will commence later this year. We are doing it. It will be for two weeks this year and will increase in the following years.

Senator Higgins mentioned the work-life balance directive. Earlier this morning, the EU Committee of Permanent Representatives approved, by a qualified majority vote, the text of the informally agreed work-life balance directive and a letter was sent to the European Parliament Committee on Employment and Social Affairs to say that agreement on first reading can be reached, subject to the Parliament agreeing to adopt the identical text at the plenary session. Ireland supported the text. Let us not talk about the big, bad Government all the time.