Maternity Protection (Child Bereavement) (Amendment) Bill 2026: Second Stage Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-11 ============================================================ Patricia Stephenson (SD), Labour Panel I share Senator Clonan's frustration at timed amendments. It is hard to come into the Chamber with ideas, solutions and progressive policies and legislation only for these to be delayed time and again. There will always be a reason to delay any individual Bill but as we hear this for every Opposition Bill, it is hard to take seriously any specific justification other than a desire to kick it down the road and put it on the long finger because of a lack of desire to work collaboratively on a cross-party basis to get good policies across the board. Grieving the loss of a child is serious. It is not a linear process. To reinforce the point, this stands separate from any legislation around miscarriage. We are talking about a child who has been born and who you have held in your arms. It is not something that can be planned for or boxed into any timeframe, with the parents' lives going on afterwards despite suffering such a horrible loss. I support any measure that provides for a more compassionate society in the workplace for parents who are experiencing the worst trauma they could imagine by allowing them some time to grieve. The Bill allows a mother to experience her maternity leave in addition to the time she deserves for the grieving process. Maternity leave exists to allow women time to physically recover from the ordeal of giving birth. It allows her to bond with her child and to focus on her own health and physical and mental well-being and on the health and development of her infant. It is a time to enjoy as a new mother. Should a mother suffer the loss of her child, she has similar but additional needs. She needs to physically recover from the birth, to look after her mental and physical health and to adjust to her status as a mother who lost a baby. How do you deal with lactation and bleeding with no baby in your arms? How do you navigate returning to the workplace to tell people that your baby died? It has been reported that many women who have stillbirths experience symptoms of PTSD, anxiety and depression. Returning to work too soon can severely impact on the time needed for those with these symptoms to recover. Other countries have introduced similar things such as protective workplace regulations for parents going through this trauma. This relates to Senator Ryan's previous Bill on supported pregnancy loss before 24 weeks, although I emphasise that this Bill is separate from that. The UK, New Zealand and Canada have recently introduced paid paternity leave for parents who have lost a child. Australia has Priya's law, whereby employers cannot cancel paid paternity leave if the infant dies. This Bill offers parents greater agency over their experience. All parents should be allowed to take adequate time off to recover and grieve instead of worrying that they are using up their parental time. Women and men both deserve this. I was shocked to learn recently that we do not actually have any statutory bereavement leave. That is just something that is given; employers can just choose to do that should they wish. We have a great culture in Ireland - I thank the Acting Chair for the bit of extra time - where we recognise the loss of any loved one or the loved ones of our loved ones. It is a brilliant culture but lots of companies here might not share that culture because they are foreign companies and they do not know what it means to us culturally to have that time. The fact that we do not have statutory bereavement anyway was a complete eye-opener to me. It also means we need to have this additional legislation for statutory bereavement leave in cases of parental loss of a child. This should not be controversial. It is something that should already be on the Statute Book. I commend Senator Ryan on identifying this need and I hope that while we await this 18-month delay, the Government will seriously think about introducing this regardless. It is the bare minimum for supporting parents who lose a child. I know the Minister knows this and I know I am not alone in this. --- 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