Every working parent with a child under five should formally present their employer with a request for parental leave, the ICTU's equality officer, Ms Joan Carmichael, has told the ICTU annual women's committee seminar in Dun Laoghaire.
Speaking on `Women and Citizenship", she said that the expansive approach of the EU towards equality of citizenship contrasted with "the pettiness" of the Government's approach to parental leave.
She singled out the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr O'Donoghue, for trying to limit access to parental leave to parents of children born after June 3rd, 1996, the date that the EU directive became law.
"The EU Commission has told the Irish Government that it cannot limit the right to parental leave to children born after the directive," she said, "and yet Mr O'Donoghue has refused to amend the Parental Leave Act of 1998."
She warned the Minister that his action would add to the ultimate cost of settling the issue. She advised "any eligible parent with children under the maximum age of five" to formally present their employer with a request for leave. This would help ensure they were not excluded from any final settlement.
The vice-president of the ICTU, Ms Inez McCormack, said: "As we go into the next millennium women have just begun to experience the difficulties of power. Our job is to define the holding of power, not as the exercise of control, but the ability to effect change and empower others in doing so."
The national equality officer of SIPTU, Ms Rosheen Callender, said that women must make policy issues the priority in accessing and exercising power within the trade union movement.
A spokesman for Mr O'Donoghue said later that the Government had appealed the initial EU findings on parental leave. It was awaiting the outcome of the appeal and would implement the final decision of the Commission.