Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)

This type of leave has always been seen as leave pertaining to the parent rather than to the child, as the Deputy described it. That is not to say additional types of leave could not be introduced looking specifically at the needs of one-parent families. This leave is designed to recognise a situation where there is a one-parent family as the result of maybe a relationship breakdown, and it is to ensure the parent who is not cohabiting or maybe does not have custody of the child is still entitled to use leave to be able to build a relationship with the child. That is important. Where the parent with custody has a new partner, that partner may also avail of this leave. It is flexible in those ways in trying to maintain existing parental relationships and allow for new ones. I take the Deputy's point that in a situation where a parent is deceased, that is a smaller category.

See this speech in context