I realise that most of our minds are on other matters today but, nevertheless, it is family friendly workplace day and it is important that we focus on this issue. It may not be of immediate crisis proportions as is the foot and mouth outbreak, but in terms of the long-term welfare of our society, particularly our families, it is a very important issue. It should be an issue not only on one day in the year, even though this is family friendly workplace day, but throughout the year for people at work, their employers and families.
I would like to raise a number of issues under this heading. The point of raising this matter is to focus on the difficulties which arise for so many families in trying to work out their daily life in terms of the needs of the workplace and their families, their individual needs, the need to interact with each other and, in many cases, the needs of their extended families and the difficulties that causes. It causes financial difficulties in terms of the cost of housing, trying to pay mortgages, pay child care, transport and so on.
One of the main areas where we can make a difference for families is by having a more flexible workplace. Although we have flexi-time and job sharing, it is by no means widespread and it does not have legal standing. Many employers would not entertain such applications in their workplace, so it is not a reality for many workers.
While I welcome the proposal to give fathers the right to attend ante-natal classes and the moves to allow mothers to adjust their working hours to facilitate breast feeding, we need to do a lot more. I raised the issue of breast feeding previously in the context of the extended maternity and adoptive leave. It is very difficult for a mother in that situation to go back to work and I would welcome any measures that would help in that regard.
I would like to focus on the need for paid parental leave. When the Parental Leave Bill was going through the Houses of the Oireachtas, we argued strongly for such leave to be paid. That is the only way such leave will be availed of by a very large sector of our society because people, whether the mother or the father, simply cannot afford to take the extra time off and to do without their wages. We are one of the few EU countries which does not pay people on parental leave. We must change that.
Perhaps the Minister will indicate whether we can expect some changes in this area to bring us into line with our European neighbours. In countries such as Austria, France and the northern European countries, people are entitled to up to a year's parental leave. That makes a huge difference to the parents of young children. It allows a child's mother or father, or both, to spend time with him or her at a very young age and it overcomes the problem of parents having to bring small babies to costly external child care facilities. If an analysis were carried out, I do not believe it would prove very costly to provide extended paid leave as savings would be made on child care places. Extended paid leave would make family life far happier as people would not be forced to make these difficult choices when their children are very young. I appeal to the Minister to consider favourably the provision of paid parental leave and other family friendly opportunities in the workplace.
Force majeure leave is available for a limited number of days per annum but many people are not aware of this facility, which should be more widely advertised. If a child is ill or has an accident, parents can avail of paid leave for a limited number of days.
We have a long way to go in becoming more family friendly but we now have the finances to achieve our objectives in this area and we should follow the example of our European neighbours.
