Deputy Woods will be aware of my approach to this issue from previous debates, especially during the passage through the Dáil of the Adoptive Leave Act, 1995. I am disposed to, and have put in place in that legislation, a statutory right to leave on adoption, primarily for adopting mothers. The purpose of that Act was to address a small but significant anomaly in our treatment of adoptive mothers, compared with our treatment of natural ones. The revision of section 26 (1) of this Bill will ensure this right and similar collectively agreed and contractual arrangements will not come into conflict with employment equality law. The provision of section 26 (1) is entirely in line with EU law.
I regard as a separate development putting in place practices and laws which will facilitate all workers whether men or women to combine their work and family responsibilities. Because of this, I actively supported the EU Directive on Parental Leave when it was adopted by the Council of Social Affairs Ministers on 3 June this year. My intervention was instrumental in broadening the scope of the 1993 parental leave directive to include adoptive parents of both sexes as well as natural parents. The parental leave directive falls to be transposed into Irish law by mid-1998, or in the event of exceptional circumstances, by mid1999.
The Report of the Second Commission on the Status of Women has adopted a broadly similar framework to that I would like to see advanced. It welcomes the proposal for adoptive maternity leave and identify the need to supplement existing provision for maternity leave with parental leave. In this connection, it mentions particularly the proposal for an EU directive on parental leave and the introduction of paternity leave. These recommendations will be considered fully in the development of any future policy proposals for family leave.