Moves to give mums of premature babies extra maternity leave

Mothers of premature babies may get extra maternity leave.

The Green Party have put down a motion calling on the Government to allow mothers to begin maternity leave only when their child arrives home from hospital.

The party want the measures — which would support the parents of 4,500 premature babies born each year and would cost €5.4m annually — included in the next budget.

Green Party TD Catherine Martin said the motion, which will be debated today, would extend maternity benefit and leave for mothers by the number of weeks a baby is born prematurely. For example, if a child is born at 32 weeks, a mother would be entitled to an extra eight weeks of maternity leave and benefit.

Ms Martin, whose three children were born full-term, said she cannot comprehend what a mother goes through when her child comes unexpectedly early.

She said legislation gives 26 weeks’ leave, and a further 16 weeks’ unpaid leave, “but it doesn’t take into consideration when a child comes prematurely”.

“Your maternity leave kicks off when your child is born, so we are looking to extend that to make it fairer.”

She gave the example of one mother, whose son, Patrick, was born at 23 weeks and spent his first 70 days on life support.

“When Tara and her husband eventually got to that special moment when you take your child home, she had only eight weeks left of maternity leave.

“How is that fair, that someone like myself, who had full-term babies, gets 26 weeks and Tara, who has been through those months of hell, gets eight weeks? So, we are looking to change that,” Ms Martin said.

“There is really an opportunity here to lead, and to be leaders in how to look after mothers and how to look after children,” she said.

Green party leader Eamon Ryan said: “We think it would have a real, practical effect on improving the lives of the youngest citizens of this state — premature babies — and their parents.”

He said the party are determined that the proposals will be included in the 2018 Budget: “To get something into the budget, you do need to come up with the idea around April, you need it agreed around June. We don’t have a huge amount of private members’ time. The fact that we have given it over to this issue signals how important it is that we do support parents, particularly of very, very young children.”

The party said they have already got the support of the Labour party and the Solidarity-PBP grouping, and the Government confirmed last night that it will not oppose the motion.

Meanwhile, Fianna Fáil have brought forward a private members’ motion on increasing the strength of the defence forces to 10,500 personnel by 2021.

Fianna Fáil defence spokeswoman Lisa Chambers said the defence forces had been an “easy target for cost-cutting” and there has been a “significant” drop in numbers: “The current figure, of 9,070 personnel, is well below the 9,500 agreed strength. This is simply unsustainable.”