Maternity leave for our councillors ‘a game-changer’
INTRODUCING maternity leave for councillors will be a game-changer for attracting more women into politics, a local representative has said.
Proposals to change laws to allow councillors take maternity and paternity leave are due to be enacted later this year.
Under current laws, councillors who are absent for more than six months are deemed to have automatically resigned from their role, while an extension of absence due to illness or ‘in good faith for another reason’ can be granted if agreed by the rest of the council.
Kerry county councillor Aoife Thornton was a sitting Fine Gael councillor and mayor of the Listowel Municipal District while pregnant with her third child five years ago.
She admitted that she struggled to balance her job and family life and says this partially explains why
there’s currently only four female representatives on the 33-member Kerry County Council.
‘The real shame here is that we have really important, policy-driven decisions that are made at local government level, and we do need more female input in those decisions,’ she told Radio Kerry.
A Labour councillor for South Dublin
‘It’s not named maternity leave’
County Council, Joanna Tuffy, said leave entitlements for councillors are already generous, as they can avail of paid leave for up to six months. However, she said establishing a specific maternity leave is welcome to encourage women to get involved in local politics.
‘One of the issues is it’s not named maternity leave, so I think naming it maternity leave in legislation would be a good thing,’ she told the Irish Daily Mail.
However, Cllr Tuffy said women should not feel like they need to take a step back from local politics because they have had a baby, remarking: ‘When you’re elected to county council, you’re a representative of your community, and what we want is women with babies to be a part of decisions. When you have a baby, you shouldn’t disappear from decision making.’
In a statement released to the Mail, the Minister of State with responsibility for Planning and Local Government, Peter Burke, said he intends to bring forward a package of maternity-related supports and measures for councillors as soon as possible and in the current Dáil session.