Each year it is estimated that 14,000 women in Ireland experience pregnancy loss yet currently, as we know, there is no provision in law for any leave for women who experience an early miscarriage - a pregnancy loss before 24 weeks - or for employees who seek time off work to access reproductive healthcare treatments like IVF. We in the Labour Party brought forward a Private Member's Bill last Thursday to deal with that, to address that issue and to provide for reproductive health leave.

We were very disappointed that the Government sought to put in a year-long stay on debate on that Bill. We will vote tomorrow night on that 12-month delaying amendment and because the House will likely not be sitting in a year's time, a year's delay amounts to ending any prospect of the Bill becoming law this year.

One of the reasons the Government put forward for delaying the Bill was that it needed to publish research commissioned by the Department of equality and completed by the UCC pregnancy loss research group last October. Today, the Minister, Deputy O’Gorman, confirmed to me that the report would be published this week. Will the Taoiseach reconsider that delaying amendment, given the report is now to be published this week?

My understanding is that early pregnancy loss and fertility treatments can be covered under the statutory sick pay scheme, which is new. It just requires a doctor's cert to that effect. However, I appreciate and am sympathetic to the calls for dedicated leave for the reasons outlined. Some employers offer it on a voluntary basis. To pick up on what many Deputies said earlier about rising costs and the rising difficulties businesses are having, the Government has introduced a lot of additional leave, including an extra public holiday, statutory sick pay, extended parental leave and domestic violence leave. Employers are saying to us, and it is not unreasonable for them to do so, that this is a significant amount of leave. They have to cover the cost of that and the replacement member of staff. We need to do the research and look at this in the round. I stand over the reforms made by the Government, including increasing the living wage, bringing in extra forms of leave and all of those things, but we have to make sure it does not impact negatively on employment.