Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the legislation. It is based on an EU directive and we need to remember a directive is not regulation. A directive has to be experienced at the same base level in every EU member state. This provides us with an opportunity to provide more rights than the base level intention of the directive. I echo much of what Senator Currie and others said. I concur that we should look at ten days instead of five. When we transpose we need a minimum equivalence but we can go way beyond this.

I commend the enormous work since the first day I met her that Senator Currie has put into this subject matter. She has been extraordinary and has led in an extraordinary way on it with all of us. Throughout the Chamber we would echo this.

I have a number of points to make and I will flesh them out on Committee Stage. A relevant parent includes those in loco parentis. How will this be tested? How will it be verified that someone is in loco parentis? In an emergency situation it is not reasonable that people may have to do this. We need more specific direction on how it will be tested as to whether someone is in loco parentis, be it on a temporary or full-time basis. Between now and legislating for surrogacy, for instance, will the second parent be deemed in loco parentisuntil they have statutory standing? How do they qualify?

With regard to carers' leave I note the Bar Council made comments on consistencies and inconsistencies with the Carer's Leave Act in this regard. Something that strikes me, and I will explore it further on Committee Stage, is that under employment equality law we have family status protection that would consider aspects of caring. Therefore, there is a protected status for someone with a child or another member of the family with a disability or an impairment. There is quite a body of law in the Labour Court about this.Given that is a protected category, its intersection with this legislation needs to be considered, particularly in the context of the bar to having access to this entitlement after 26 weeks. We need to give this greater consideration. It is just one of the issues that we need to think about further on Committee Stage.

The next concern is that there needs to be a significant medical issue, as per section 5. How is that verified or adjudicated upon at short notice? Where does one cross the threshold into a significant medical issue? How does an individual know that he or she has reached that threshold and can avail of the related entitlement? We need feedback and further exploration in that regard.

While I welcome the fact that domestic violence leave has been included, I have some concerns vis-à-visthe general data protection regulation, GDPR, and the retention of domestic violence-related data. The National Vetting Bureau (Children and Vulnerable Persons) Act 2012 which governs Garda vetting provides that only a designated person is allowed to hold information of a disclosure on the PULSE system related to an employee. We need to be very sensitive with regard to domestic violence leave. Where someone accesses such leave, and I would wholeheartedly support his or her right and entitlement to do so, there needs to be a sensitivity with regard to the storage of the related data.