This amendment, which I will push as much as I can, is about examining ways in which paid parental leave can be extended to lone parents to provide equality between one-parent and two-parent families. At the moment there is maternity, paternity and parental leave benefit, and paid and unpaid leave. The point was made that we should streamline all parental leave legislation, including that providing for maternity leave, paternity leave, parent's leave and benefit, and parental leave.
When considering the gap between the end of parental leave, including paid and unpaid parental leave, and the start of the ECCE scheme, it is important to acknowledge that we are narrowing that gap, including by the significant step we are taking today, in this Bill, by extending parent's leave and unpaid parental leave. This Bill started out as a parental leave Bill but it is now a family leave Bill.
Key terms by TF-IDF across 3,543 words from 7 speakers. The summary quotes the highest-scoring sentences verbatim — nothing is paraphrased.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Holly Cairns and Jennifer Whitmore; Níl, Deputies Brendan Griffin and Jack Chambers.
| Question | Result | Tá–Níl |
|---|---|---|
| Amendment put: | Lost | 52–79 |
| Amendment put: | Lost | 56–78 |
| Question put: | Carried | 80–57 |
| Amendment put: | Lost | 55–83 |
| Amendment put: | Carried | 84–56 |
Party shown is the one each member held on 2021-03-25, frozen by a dated join — not their party today. The Oireachtas API publishes no date of birth and returns an empty gender field for every member in this period, so no age or gender breakdown is shown.