Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. I feel somewhat overdressed on this occasion. If it were not for Mr. Groves I would be the only creature in the Chamber wearing a tie. This is not a criticism.

I welcome the news that the Minister, Deputy McEntee, will remain in Cabinet for the duration of her maternity leave with her duties to be taken over by a colleague. I am glad that a means to facilitate this was found. I would, of course, welcome any constitutional or legal change that would bring about a more permanent way of dealing with maternity leave among Ministers in future. Above all, I wish her, her husband, Paul, and their new baby the very best for the coming months and years.

I welcome the Bill, in particular some of what the Minister said in the course of his speech. I welcome any measure or initiative that allows parents to spend time raising their children. I would add that to the greatest extent possible the State should stay out of how parents choose to raise their children, with due regard, of course, to the constitutional safeguards, while providing the best possible legal framework for parents to make the best decisions with, and for, their families.

While our national policy pays lip service to this goal it is only facilitated in a partial and piecemeal way. The problem at the heart of family policy in Ireland is that every Government for the past 20 years has been devoted to conscripting mothers and fathers into the workplace, particularly women and mothers, when it has been clear in these families that they would prefer that one of them would stay in the home caring for their children.More often than not, that might be the mother but that is not exclusively the case. A survey by Amárach Research a few years ago indicated 48% of parents would prefer to care for their children at home rather than resorting to expensive childcare but many cannot do so because they cannot survive on just one income and the State makes it as difficult as possible for them to do so through our taxation system and the obsession of policymakers with high-cost childcare. We do not even speak much about tax individualisation now but I remember when a former Minister for Finance, Charlie McCreevy, introduced this in a budget. I was one of many people criticising that and what it meant for single income families, with a shift away from the important needs of parents in families to have one of the parents stay at home if that was the wish.

I saw a headline just the other day that Covid-19 has caused a fall in demand for crèche places and that crèches seem to believe this will lead to closures and a rise in crèche fees. I am not an economist but normally one expects a fall in demand will lead to a fall in the cost of a service rather than an increase. Childcare and crèches seem to be one of the sectors in Irish life where the costs faced by ordinary families follow a one-way, upward-only ratchet, where the ratchet is relentlessly driven by State policy. We saw this with the previous Government and the bizarre childcare plan of a former Minister, Katherine Zappone, who sought to give cash incentives to parents who chose to put their children into day care while not giving a penny to parents who chose to stay at home to care for their own children. In other words, it was an effective financial penalty for parents if they chose to stay at home with their children. That demonstrated a morally bankrupt family policy.

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are driving this Government with support from the Green Party and it is worth noting that one of the core values of the Fine Gael Party is that it "believes individuals and families know best how to organise their own lives and make decisions for themselves". How can that be true when successive Governments involving that party have tried to make decisions for parents by standing over policies such as the Zappone childcare plan?

National policy on any matter should start with the end goal we want to achieve and work backwards from this with the policy measures that can bring that about. Too often we seem to be wedded to the policy measures themselves and we lose sight of what we are trying to achieve. Something ought to change in this respect. We must work to bring mothers and particularly fathers into their children's lives in a meaningful way. We have seen in the UK and further afield how the absence of fathers in households has proven negative effects on the happiness, health and life prospects of their children. We could well go in the same direction if we do not take measures to pre-empt and prevent that trend.

I welcome the Minister's comments that an important facet of parent leave is to encourage the sharing of childcare and that he hopes an additional period of leave will support and enable fathers in taking a more prominent role in the care of a young child. Those are very welcome words. In that regard and reflecting on what has been said about Article 41.2, the constitutional provision on mothers in the home, I contend it is a very misunderstood provision. In its time it was good and positive, particularly in view of the patterns then prevalent in Irish life. The problem has never been about the provision but rather that it is now unduly specific about the parent to which it pertains. I support a change in the wording but the principle is of parents giving care in the home. I know some question whether the principle should be broadened to the giving of care in the home in general. I support that but there is something in particular to be said about the role of parents giving care in the home.

The Bill introduces adoptive leave for male same-sex couples and this follows from changes in the law at the time of the marriage referendum with the children and family relationships legislation. The logic of the legislation must be followed. I remember debating with the former Minister, Frances Fitzgerald, and she indicated there is no hierarchy of families. I remain of the view, along with many others in this country, that policy should always aim to help children to be brought up by a father and mother and, where it is possible, their father and mother. I strongly believe our policy should always have that preference built in, even while recognising there will be different and unusual positions that must be provided for by law.Nobody should apologise for having that view because it is grounded in reality. Many people still want to restate it in the most respectful way possible and hope we can move towards that position in our social policy.

The Minister has had a difficult job in recent times, and I sympathise with him, around the mother and baby homes and adoption. I am mindful of the recent documentary in that area. We all have to realise that there were practices in the past that cannot be stood over, including the falsification of birth records. The idea of closed adoption is not something we would endorse today. We also have to acknowledge that sometimes adoption causes pain for the birth mother and sometimes the experience of fostering and adoption has been painful for the children. However, adoption itself is a good thing and can be a good and generous thing. When we consider the tragedy of 6,666 abortions taking place since the legislation, I hope for a day when we can reopen the debate about promoting adoption in the right context, as a good and generous thing that is not without challenges but which at least gives people the chance of life and of a life. I hope our social policy can be generous enough to rediscover that truth.