I seek a date from the Leader for the resumption of the Committee Stage debate on the Employment Equality (Amendment) Bill. This is the Bill that I, together with Labour Party Senators, introduced as a Private Member's Bill on 13 March 2013 to amend section 37(1) of the Employment Equality Act to ensure one no longer has the potential to discriminate in schools against teachers because of their sexuality or marital status. There is great support for the principle of the Bill from all sides of the House. The Committee Stage debate began earlier this year, in April, and is due to resume once Government amendments have been prepared. I hope the Leader and I can work to ensure Committee Stage will resume and that the Bill will pass through the House before the end of the session in December.

I also ask the Leader for a debate on the national dementia strategy. I was glad to join members of The Alzheimer Society of Ireland outside Leinster House earlier today and commend them for their work. In particular, they seek to highlight the need to ensure the proper roll-out of a national dementia strategy and I ask the Leader for a debate on this issue in early course.

I commend the Start Strong organisation for its event last Thursday that I attended and at which the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Frances Fitzgerald, spoke. I also wish to state how glad I am that she has made a commitment to making some change in the law to ensure better provision of parental leave and paternity leave, in particular. Senator Mary White has been hugely active on this issue and introduced Private Members' legislation in this regard. Like the section 37 amendment, I hope there can also be cross-party support for this initiative.