Holly Cairns: 'Ridiculous' lack of maternity leave for politicians a 'glaring barrier'
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The "ridiculous" lack of maternity leave for politicians is a major barrier to women entering public life, it has been claimed.
Social Democrat TD Holly Cairns is pushing to introduce maternity leave rights for all elected representatives after the issue was again highlighted following Helen McEntee's pregnancy announcement.
Ms Cairns has offered to pair with the Justice Minister for all votes if changes to allow her take maternity leave are not introduced before she gives birth next year.
Ms McEntee announced her pregnancy over the weekend. She will become the first senior Cabinet minister to give birth while in office.
Congratulating Ms McEntee, Ms Cairns said: "It's mad that she's the first member of Cabinet to give birth while in office. It's even madder that there isn't any provisions for maternity leave, that goes for councillors, senators and TDs.
"It's just ridiculous in 2020 that we're even talking about this but I think the reality is that if we've had more women at decision-making tables all along we probably wouldn't be having this conversation and perhaps if we had maternity leave for public representatives we would have more women at those decision-making tables."
Ms Cairns first raised the issue with the Taoiseach back in July and has since been working on changes with the Bills Office in Leinster House. She hopes to get an update and a number of options back from the office later this week.
"This is an obvious glaring barrier. It poses such a huge barrier to female participation," she said.
She pointed to work being looked at by Fine Gael's Jennifer Carroll MacNeill to allow for remote voting and said this could be another option.
"Although it's important I think that people have proper time off and time to recover from childbirth and time to bond and all of those things and having to vote during that time maybe isn't ideal, perhaps it's an option and something we need to look at given the very specific nature of the job.
"The need to vote remotely also became quite clear in the pandemic," Ms Cairns said.
She said she hopes that any bill put forward will be supported by all parties as the issue should not be a partisan issue.