Attendance at ante-natal classes without loss of pay, breast-feeding breaks and additional maternity leave in the event of illness are among proposals to be published in the autumn.
The provisions will be in a Bill drafted by the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, following agreement in principle by the Cabinet this week.
The Minister of State at the Department, Mr Willie O'Dea, told The Irish Times the proposals arose out of the Report of the Working Group on the Review and Improvement of the Maternity Protection Legislation, published in February 2001.
One of its main recommendations, to increase paid maternity leave to 18 weeks, has already been implemented.
A number of other recommendations from the working group did not make it into legislation during the last session of the Oireachtas.
These include a provision that employers help facilitate breast-feeding, either by an adjustment of working hours or by providing facilities in the workplace for a mother either to breast-feed or express milk for four months after the birth of the child.
It also recommended that if a woman had, for medical reasons, to be transferred to a different department or different working hours following the birth of her child, she should not suffer financial loss, and this will be in the new legislation.
It will also provide for additional maternity leave in the event of illness following the birth, and provision for an employee to split the period of maternity leave if the child is hospitalised.
There will be enhanced protection from dismissal because of absence due to pregnancy. This is already provided for in EU case law, following a 1996 ruling from the European Court of Justice.
Under the new proposed legislation, such protection would be treated the same as sick leave for a male worker, and would be covered in the same way under the unfair dismissals legislation.
An employee's absence from work on additional maternity leave, including the additional eight weeks' unpaid leave also provided for in the legislation, will count for all employment rights, except remuneration and superannuation benefits.