Maternity Protection (Child Bereavement) (Amendment) Bill 2026: Second Stage Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-11 ============================================================ Margaret Murphy O'Mahony (FF), Labour Panel I move amendment No. 1: To delete all words after “That” and substitute the following: - “Seanad Éireann resolves that the Maternity Protection (Child Bereavement) (Amendment) Bill 2026 be read a second time on this day 18 months, to allow for further examination of the issues raised in the Bill, alongside existing work to develop legislative proposals for pregnancy loss and miscarriage leave.” Curaim fáilte roimh an Aire. I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Maternity Protection (Child Bereavement) (Amendment) Bill 2026. I also want to acknowledge the deeply sensitive nature of the subject before us today. The loss of a child is one of the most devastating experiences any parent can endure and it is incumbent upon us as legislators to ensure that the law reflects compassion, clarity and fairness for families at such a vulnerable moment. Fianna Fáil welcomes this debate and we support the Government’s timed amendment, which proposes to defer the second reading of this Bill for 18 months. This is not a delay for the sake of delay. It is a necessary period during which the issues raised in this Bill can be carefully examined alongside the significant work already under way on pregnancy loss and miscarriage leave. The Bill seeks to permit a pregnant employee, or an employee already on maternity leave, to pause that leave following the death of a child. It proposes a postponement ranging from a minimum of five weeks up to a maximum of 52 weeks, with the option of a second postponement within that same timeframe. These are substantial changes with far-reaching implications, not only for employees but also for employers, the benefit systems and existing leave structures. Under existing law, an employee is entitled to full maternity leave if she experiences a stillbirth or miscarriage after 24 weeks’ gestation or if her baby has a birth weight of at least 500 grams. These entitlements are kept under continuous review to ensure that they remain appropriate to the needs of working parents. It is important to acknowledge the wider context. In recent years, working life has been transformed by remote and flexible working arrangements, by lessons learned during the Covid-19 pandemic and by new EU-driven family-leave obligations. The State has significantly expanded parental, paternity, adoptive and medical care leave, and introduced domestic violence leave under the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Act. With every new entitlement, we must ensure coherence, fairness and a clear understanding for both employees and employers. Work is already progressing in this regard. Following the Pregnancy Loss (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2025, the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, together with the Department of Children, Disability and Equality, is developing legislative proposals on pregnancy loss and miscarriage leave. A major study, resulting in the PLACES report, has also been completed. It examines the workplace experiences of parents who experience pregnancy loss prior to 24 weeks' gestation and asks whether we need national policy interventions to better support them. It is important to note that parents who experience pregnancy loss after 24 weeks can already avail of existing maternity and paternity leave provisions. This work is reinforced by commitments in the National Strategy for Women and Girls 2025-2030, particularly the objective to advance sexual and reproductive healthcare and related leave provisions. The action plan for that strategy will include a specific action on developing miscarriage leave legislation. This is not just an exercise; it is live, ongoing work with real legislative outputs expected. The Bill amends the Maternity Protection Act 1994 by inserting a new section 14D providing for the postponement of maternity leave following the death of a child. However, there are several areas where greater clarity is required. For example, the Bill does not specify whether the postponed period should be paid, nor whether payment should come from employers or the State. Without that clarity, we risk creating unintended consequences, financial uncertainty for families and administrative burden for employers. The Bill also appears to mirror provisions introduced in the Maternity Protection, Employment Equality and Preservation of Certain Records Act 2024, which allows maternity leave to be paused for medical treatment related to serious illness. However, pausing maternity leave due to medical need is fundamentally different in nature from pausing it for bereavement leave, and this distinction needs careful consideration. I realise the Bill was developed in conjunction with the INTO to reflect the entitlement of public servants to 20 days' bereavement leave, but the Bill proposes a postponement period far in excess of that. If unpaid, this could create significant income gaps for teachers and public servants and even greater challenges for workers in the private sector who may not have contractual bereavement leave at all. These are precisely the kinds of complexities that justify the Government's 18-month timed amendment. It gives us space to align this Bill with already advancing work on pregnancy loss legislation to consider payment mechanisms to avoid creating unintended inequities and to ensure that any policy change is workable for all sectors. The intention behind this Bill is honourable. It reflects compassion and seeks to support parents in the most unimaginable circumstances. What we must do now is ensure that we get the detail of the Bill right and that the final legislation is fair, coherent and capable of being implemented consistently and effectively. Fianna Fáil remains committed to improving the supports available to parents who experience loss. We support the spirit of this Bill and the Government's timed amendment as the best way to deliver considered, comprehensive and compassionate legislation. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-02-11/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:37+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-02-11