Rebecca Moynihan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I pay tribute to Senator O'Loughlin for taking the initiative on this issue as a panel discussion. It is appropriate that we are discussing this issue at this time of night because this is the time that an awful lot of full council meetings take place. On many occasions, I have held many babies in the council chamber and assisted their mothers with newborns outside. It always seemed crazy that when newborns had to sit in a waiting room in a council chamber when they should have been wrapped up at home while their mothers, who were just recovering from childbirth, had to go inside to vote or speak. It is not just one baby I have done that for. There have been many babies, many councillors and many friends of mine. It is the 21st century and local councillors should have the supports they need to have children. I welcome this discussion. I welcome the AILG recommendations and the Bill on the floor of the Dáil from Deputy Cairns, which is a very simple measure to amend the Local Government Act to expand it.

I believe the Bill should be enacted without delay but I have looked at some of the wider issues contained in the AILG report. As somebody who was a city councillor, I know of the huge workload involved and how every single thing is one's responsibility and one's responsibility alone. In here, we have secretarial support that allows us to do our work. I have an office where there is a meeting I must attend but I also have my secretarial assistant, who is on another meeting for me and doing notes for me so that I am able to read and catch up with them. If I was a councillor, I would be doing every single one of those things by myself. One of the better innovations from the UK was the provision of a locum MP for Stella Creasy MP when she was on her first maternity leave who assisted with casework on her behalf. The UK equivalent of SIPO would not let that happen or allow her to do that again. The locum MP did not vote in the UK Parliament but assisted with casework, which allowed Stella Creasy to be able to take maternity leave. She was recently told that she could not take her child to the chamber to breastfeed. She should not be in there. She should not be breastfeeding in the chamber because she should be able to take maternity leave. Later on, if she is coming back to work, there should be breastfeeding facilities.

Attendance is another issue. Every woman should have the right to physically recover from childbirth and spend quality time with her newborn to bond. I welcome the AILG recommendation which calls for new parents to be exempt from the rule that requires members to attend more than 50% to 80% of meetings. We can do much to improve the family-friendly times of councils but this is much more difficult when councillors are holding down full-time jobs. During the pandemic, we managed to employ new technology to allow people to attend remotely and to be able to vote remotely. If we can do that because of Covid and to keep us all safe, we can do it to give dignity back to mothers, who should be physically recovering from childbirth, and allow them to breastfeed their children and to be fully engaged with the council after maternity leave is up. Many people breastfeed beyond a year or two years. If there are breastfeeding mothers who need to be facilitated, we should employ all the tools available to us.

This is a very timely discussion. It is particularly timely when it comes to so many councillors around the country who have said that they cannot continue with the job because they do not have the support they need. Could the Minister of State have a look at providing secretarial support and the UK example of a locum MP for women going on maternity leave? That was a really good innovation. Unfortunately, the UK discontinued it but it was a good way of ensuring that people have representation and young mothers have the dignity of being allowed to recover from childbirth.