Parental and adoptive leave are to be extended, the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Mr Martin has announced.
Speaking at an EU conference on work-life balance yesterday, Mr Martin said legislation was being drafted to enhance existing provisions in relation to parental and adoptive leave.
"The main provisions of the new legislation will include extended adoptive leave and an entitlement to take parental leave in separate blocks of six continuous weeks.
"The maternity legislation has just been revised and provides for paid time off to attend ante-natal classes and paid breastfeeding breaks."
He said the amended legislation relating to adoptive leave was expected to be enacted by the end of the year and that relating to parental leave by the middle of next year.
The conference, hosted by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, is titled Living to Work - Working to Live - Tomorrow's work life balance in Europe.
The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, also addressed the conference. He said a clear demand for new approaches to working and living was being fuelled by the challenges of combining career and personal commitments, adaptation to the growing importance of the services sector and increasing demands from people for 24-hour, seven days a week services.
"While legislation is clearly important in terms of protecting workers, it often provides only for minimum standards," he continued.
Mr Vlado Dimovski, Minister of Labour, Family and Social Affairs in Slovenia, said equality between men and women was a fundamental principle in the enlarged EU. Women must therefore be equally represented in the labour market, he said.
"Establishing a new gender contract also means creating a new agenda of reconciliation of work and private/family life." Throughout the conference speakers stressed the need to increase women's and older people's participation in the work force if economic growth was to be sustained.
