Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)

I commend Senators Ryan and Murray on introducing this Bill. I also suffered early miscarriage loss. As Senator Ryan said, every loss matters. No matter what the stage of one’s loss, it will place a physical, emotional and psychological trauma on one. Under the current system, women losing a child at under 23 weeks often find themselves having to return to work, many still experiencing very physical symptoms such as bleeding and cramps, which only adds to the emotional and psychological suffering experienced. This leads to employees having to take sick leave or annual leave or to ask employers for discretionary compassionate leave, which ensures added secrecy and often shame. I was told I was grand and to get on with it, it was an early pregnancy loss and I was fine. When people have early pregnancy loss, they actually do think that they should be getting on with it and that they should be able to go back into work.

When women are struggling to cope with the reality, they should be supported. Women should not have to decide whether to take sick leave and pretend they are sick, because they are not sick. They should not have to take annual leave when they are actually grieving, and they should have time and support to be able to do that. They should not have to make impossible choices around how they acknowledge their feelings of grief. Grief does not follow the same pattern or timetable for all people and that needs to be reflected in the legislation. Some people may be able to return to work shortly after loss while others might need to take much longer. The INTO, as a trade union made up largely of women, has been instrumental in bringing issues to national attention. The Labour Party reproductive Bill, which bears many similarities to this Bill, was constructed largely on information and data provided by the PLACES workforce report. I want to commend Senator Ryan for organising a briefing with the UCC pregnancy loss research group, where Professor Keelin O’Donoghue and Dr. Marita Hennessy made very clear what the evidence said we needed to see.

The Organisation of Working Time Act is the perfect place for this amendment. The reproductive Bill that my colleague Deputy Sherlock introduced has passed Second Stage in the Dáil and will go for further scrutiny.I think the Act is the perfect place for it to be. The introduction and maintenance of a voluntary register, which we have spoken about, for the registration of lost pregnancies at any stage of gestation is a significant and welcome development in the recognition of that loss and of each lost child's unique identity. Pregnancy loss is a matter so personal and internally painful to women or a family unit and each experience is so unique that it has perhaps suited society to treat it as a private event. While this may work for some women and families, it does not work for others who feel their loss is unacknowledged in a way that no other form of bereavement would be. I fully support this Bill. I agree with Senator Stephenson that there should be no time delay with this. I urge that it be looked at again. The place for it is within the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997.