Ireland at odds with others on maternity leave for politicians
Fianna Fáil senator Lisa Chambers, who was pregnant during the 2020 general election campaign, recalled some constituents commenting: 'oh, she's taking maternity leave, no point in electing her'.
Attention has yet again been drawn to the lack of parental leave arrangements for Oireachtas members with the recent announcement by Minister for Justice Helen McEntee that she and her husband are due their first child in 2021. The news was greeted by well wishes from across the political spectrum, but also by stories from women who recounted their experiences of balancing the care for a newborn with their public representative duties.
Over 100 years since women first gained the right to stand in general elections and since the first woman, Constance Markievicz, was appointed to cabinet, the Oireachtas has yet to work out how to accommodate the involvement and participation of new mothers.
We can’t scratch our heads and wonder why there are not more women entering politics. Lack of maternity leave continues to be a major barrier. @HollyCairnsTD pic.twitter.com/DzRY0Bc11w
— Social Democrats (@SocDems) December 8, 2020
While Ireland is not alone in this regard, it is increasingly at odds with other nation states. In 2011, a Inter-parliamentary Union (IPU) survey of parental leave conditions for parliamentarians worldwide found that in 62% of cases, maternity leave provisions for women parliamentarians were the same as those prescribed by national law, 12% adopted their own formal policies and 26% had no special provisions. Ireland falls into the latter category.
In Denmark, members of parliament may be granted leave of 12 months in the case of pregnancy, childbirth and adoption.
In June 2019, the Canadian House of Commons passed legislation to approve a 12-month parental leave programme for MPs to enable parents of newly born or newly adopted children to take time away from the Chamber without penalty.
In Germany, members of the Bundestag may be granted maternity leave for six weeks before and eight weeks after the birth of a child.
During the period of leave, some parliaments facilitate a formal substitute or replacement to temporarily take over the mandate of the parliamentarian on maternity or parental leave. Proxy voting and remote voting are also accommodated by some parliaments.
In September 2020, the UK parliament changed its standing orders to enable MPs to arrange for their vote to be cast by another MP and act as a proxy, in cases where a MP is absent for reasons of childbirth, care of an infant or a newly adopted child.
The worldwide move to formalise maternity and parental leave for parliamentarians is a recognition of the fact that parliamentary rules were usually formulated at a time when women were not even permitted to run for political office. There is a general acceptance that it is no longer appropriate or feasible to expect women to ‘fit’ the practices of political institution, but rather political institutions must change, as a lack of maternity leave for women in politics is a barrier to women’s political participation.
A case-in-point is the experience of former Labour Party councillor Deirdre Kingston who, in July 2019, decided against contesting the 2020 Dáil election, even though she was widely tipped to be in with a good chance to win a seat for her party. The lack of maternity leave and parental supports, at both the national and local levels, was a key factor in her decision.
2020 has shown us that remote working can be done and worldwide, parliaments have adjusted to remote sittings, remote voting and proxy voting as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
I want to wish Minister Helen McEntee and her husband Paul, all the best with the recent news that they are expecting a baby. It has highlighted the unacceptable fact that female TDs and Senators are not entitled to maternity leave there is an urgent need to deal with this issue. pic.twitter.com/6xzq5WojXN
— Senator Eugene Murphy (@SenatorEMurphy) December 14, 2020
However, in Ireland, legal advice conveyed by the clerk of the Dáil advised that remote sittings of the Houses of the Oireachtas was not constitutionally permissible due to Article 15.11.1°’s requirement that: “All questions in each House shall, save as otherwise provided by this Constitution, be determined by a majority of the votes of the members present and voting other than the Chairman or presiding member”.
To address the “present and voting” requirement, Fine Gael TD Jennifer Carroll-MacNeill introduced a Bill in the Dáil on December 8 which seeks to amend the Constitution to accommodate a new proposed Article 15.11.4, which would state: “Each House may make its own rules and standing orders providing for special and limited circumstances by which members not present in that House may vote when any matter, or any class of matter as so provided for, is to be determined by a vote of that House”.
Such a change to the Constitution would accommodate members of the Oireachtas who are immuno-suppressed, and during a pandemic, maybe self-isolating; accommodate maternity and parental leave; and accommodate those who, through an illness or medical treatment, may not be able to attend the house for a period of time.
However, some constitutional experts, including Dr Jennifer Kavanagh of Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) and Hilary Hogan of the European University Institute (EUI) advise that a Constitutional referendum may not be required and that aside from Article 15.11.1° there are other articles, notably Articles 15.10, 16.3 and 40.1, that may permit the Oireachtas to reform its procedures to accommodate formalised arrangements for maternity and parental leave.
Whatever process of change is required, the resultant arrangements should be informed by the experiences of those members, past and present, as well as councillors and MEPs, who have balanced the care for a newborn with public representative duties, but also recognise that political culture may counteract any proposals.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio One’s soon after the 2020 general election campaign, Senator Lisa Chambers, who was pregnant during the campaign, recalled some constituents commenting: "oh, she's taking maternity leave, no point in electing her”.
Politics is notoriously unrepresentative of the communities it serves; less than a quarter of TDs are women, despite making-up half of the population.
A continuing failure of the Oireachtas to amend its procedures and structures to accommodate the full participation of women will see this situation persist. As legislative assemblies worldwide attest, the provision of maternity leave for women, at all levels of the political system, is not insoluble.
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