I got diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer when I was 30 weeks pregnant in November 2019. Can you imagine how horrific it is to swap the sheer joy of welcoming your first child with the cold dread of wondering if you’ll be around to see her grow? Then try to imagine the trauma of spending your six months of maternity leave in and out of hospital for surgeries, radiation and chemotherapy and not being able to care for her fully.

Trading holding her for sitting alone in a chemo chair. Getting daily radiation as she murmurs her first word. Being in too much pain some days to hold her. That was not maternity leave. I should have been on sick leave and I should have been able to take my maternity leave when my treatment ended. However, due to outdated legislation the period of my treatment counted as my maternity leave.

If my child was sick or premature I could have extended my maternity leave. Crushingly, if my husband was sick he could postpone his paternity leave. But I could not defer my maternity leave. I finished active treatment on April 30th, 2020, and I got a letter from the Department of Social Protection a week later saying my maternity leave was up.

All politicians have agreed that it needs to be........

© The Irish Times