Women who adopt children will have their maternity leave increased to 16 weeks under legislation introduced in the Dáil yesterday.
The Minister of State for Equality, Mr Frank Fahey, said that under the terms of the Adoptive Leave Bill, "both natural and adopting mothers will be entitled to avail of up to 16 weeks' leave from work with payment of Department of Social and Family Affairs benefit, from the time a child is born or placed into their care".
He said the Bill would enhance existing legislative provisions which supported employed adopting parents.
Its provisions also include allowing adopting parents time off from work, without loss of pay, to attend pre-adoption classes and meetings which they are obliged by the State to attend as part of the adoption process.
Unofficial Adoption Board figures show that last year 621 adoptions were authorised, of which 358 were foreign adoptions, 92 were Irish non-family adoptions and 171 were adoptions within families.
Mr Fahey said the Bill represented a balanced and progressive response to the needs of employed adopting parents.
Mr Damien English (FG, Meath) welcomed the legislation but said the 16 weeks' leave was different from the entitlement of natural parents "who will have two weeks' leave prior to birth, giving them a total of 18 weeks' leave. Does this imply discrimination against the person adopting a child? Although adoptive parents do not need to spend time in hospital to have the baby, they need preparation time off beforehand to prepare and organise for the arrival of the child."
Labour's equality spokeswoman, Ms Breeda Moynihan-Cronin, asked why a woman must be younger than a man to adopt a child. Numerous surveys had been published over the years, which highlighted that women lived, on average, 10 years longer than men.
Mr Paudge Connolly (Ind, Cavan-Monaghan) said the Bill was a significant advance in providing labour rights for prospective adoptive parents, "but we continue to play catch-up in comparison with some of our EU and non-EU counterparts".
Mr Ciaran Cuffe (Green, Dún Laoghaire) called for the "gender-proofing" of the legislation. He said there was a strong emphasis on the different roles of mother and father. When considering adoptive parents "we should perhaps remove the references to gender as it may well be that the father is the primary carer".
Mr Arthur Morgan (SF, Louth) said he did not believe maternity leave was adequate, "welcome though it is".
"We call for the total period of leave to be increased to 26 weeks to allow for a greater period of leave after adoption. This is absolutely necessary, given the difficulties with child-minding faced by working mothers," he said.
