On International Women’s Day, we should recall that many women lack support from employers when facing difficult issues around pregnancy loss and reproductive health. To address this, two years ago today, we publish the Organisation of Working Time (Reproductive Health Related Leave) Bill 2021 to provide up to 20 days paid leave for women who experience early miscarriage and up to ten days leave for employees undergoing IVF treatment. The Government initially expressed openness to this Bill in the Seanad but we were very disappointed when our amendments to the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill 2022, which would have given effect to our legislation's provisions, were not accepted. The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth is undertaking research into the issue of early miscarriage leave, but the Government is running out of time in bringing in this much-needed legislation. I ask the Taoiseach that the Government take on our Bill in order to ensure leave is provided, particularly to women employees at such a difficult time when they are enduring early miscarriage or pregnancy loss. Currently, there is no provision in our law for any sort of leave entitlement.

I know there are some employers who already offer early pregnancy loss leave and, indeed, some that offer it to fathers as well as mothers experiencing this. That is a very good thing. We have introduced sick leave, as of 1 January 2023, that is any form of medical leave, once there is a doctor's certificate that can cover treatments, such as IVF and early pregnancy loss, but I appreciate these are discrete issues. The difficulty that the Government is running into is that there are a great number of different proposals for various new forms of leave. The Deputy mentioned two forms of leave. There is also bereavement leave, for example, which involves unpaid leave but not paid leave. We have a series of different proposals for different forms of leave, in addition to different forms of payment associated with that leave. The Departments of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and the Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth are coming together to examine the issue in the round in order that we get it right. We must also take into account the costs for employers, which are not irrelevant.