In November 2019, when I was 30 weeks pregnant, I received a frightening diagnosis of stage 3 breast cancer. Can you imagine the chilling fear of potentially not being able to watch your child grow, replacing the pure joy of awaiting your firstborn? Or the trauma of using your six-month maternity leave for multiple surgeries, therapies, and chemotherapy instead of fully caring for your newborn?
Swapping cuddling your baby with chemotherapy isolation. Hearing your baby’s first syllables while enduring pain from daily radiation sessions. Some days, the agony was so intense that I couldn’t even hold her. Calling this maternity leave is a misnomer. It should have been categorised as sick leave, and I should have been allowed to commence my maternity leave following my treatment’s completion. Sadly, due to archaic legislation, my treatment period was officially considered my maternity leave.
If my baby had been premature or unwell, I could’ve extended my leave, and if my spouse was ill, he could’ve postponed his paternity leave. But, disappointingly, I wasn’t allowed such flexibility with my maternity leave. On 30th April 2020, I ended my active treatment, and within a week, a letter from the Department of Social Protection informed me that my maternity leave had expired.
All parliamentarians agree that this flaw needs rectification. It’s likely that this is due to outdated maternity legislation, with the last significant amendments made almost two decades ago, unlike the more recently updated paternity equivalent.
Looking at my reflection in the mirror, I thought to myself, “Surely they don’t expect this severely ill, bald woman to return to work immediately? Surely the government does not consider my experience a typical maternity leave with bonding and child-care opportunities?” It was a distressing reality.
In 2020, I reached out to the Irish Cancer Society to begin discussions on how to resolve this issue and allow cancer-stricken mothers to defer their maternity leave. This is a relatively simple legislative change that hasn’t been implemented despite our tireless efforts. We inaugurated the “Leave our Leave” campaign outside Leinster House in June 2022, appealing for the allowance of leave deferral for pregnant women or immediate post-partum mothers. The struggle continues, however, as there have been little to no changes yet.
Since my child’s birth four and a half years ago, all I’ve seen is inactivity from the government. Each year in Ireland, around 60 expecting mothers are found to be suffering from cancer, implicating a staggering figure of 270 families having undergone this grave injustice since the time my daughter was born.
The annual meeting of the Green Party in the previous October saw another diagnosis for me. Minister Roderic O’Gorman for Children reflected on the party’s accomplishments, sharing news on RTÉ about their commitment to updating the law by the close of 2023. We celebrated as he made this seemingly definitive announcement – tears of relief and hope streamed down my face, for at the very least our campaign had achieved this victory.
However, the subsequent period witnessed no action towards delivering on this promise. Minister O’Gorman mentioned that the legislative change was being contemplated to be included under the broader omnibus Bill, encompassing other equality and family amendments.
There is concern that this inclusion of the proposed changes within a larger bill might slow down what essentially is a simple modification of the present law— to replace the entitlement to seek the termination of maternity leave owing to illness, with the right to defer it. This “repeal and replace” mechanism is rather straightforward. If action is not taken promptly, it may not take place under the tenure of the current government. The apprehension is that the matter will be shelved once elections are announced, and we would have to begin all over again with new ministers and TDs, effectively wasting three years of hard work.
Throughout the course of our discussions on this matter, not a single person has expressed disagreement with our objectives or presented reasons as to why the issue shouldn’t be addressed. The lack of reasons to oppose changes to the law is striking. It’s an accepted fact that this needs amending, a legislative peculiarity with the Maternity Act not being updated in almost two decades, whereas the Paternity Act has been recently revised. Faced with the tangible reality of inaction, despite the unanimous consent and pledges of action, I am left utterly bewildered.
“Today, as I find myself seated in the chemotherapy chair with a trio of chemo treatments flowing through the port in my chest, I pen this article. I regret the need to discuss this matter again, particularly following the purported firm promise we received last October. Erica Tierney, a campaigner and parent, champions equal parental leave rights during her maternity while battling cancer for a second time.”