An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-22
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Ivana Bacik (LAB), Dublin Bay South

Today, the British Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, has announced that women employees will be provided with two weeks' leave to grieve and recover following a miscarriage before 24 weeks. It is now five years since I first introduced legislation in the Seanad to provide for workplace leave along the same lines here. I refer to leave when it matters most - compassionate leave. My Bill received unanimous support from Senators then, including Government Senators, but progress since then has been glacially slow, held up by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Tomorrow, my Labour colleague, Deputy Marie Sherlock, will bring the Bill to the enterprise committee on the next Stage. This is our latest attempt to move the dial to support women through pregnancy loss and couples through fertility treatment and to make our workplaces more compassionate. Will the Government listen to the thousands of people, mainly women, who have contacted all of our offices over the years, take the proposal on and, crucially, make it law this year that employees can receive recognition in the workplace where they endure an early miscarriage?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-22/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:49+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-22