Sinn Féin President Mary Lou McDonald TD has welcomed today’s decision to end the exclusion of women returning from maternity leave from the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme.

She said it will be a relief to many women that the government has finally accepted what Sinn Féin has been saying for weeks – that legislation was not required to deal with this issue.

She said:

“I welcome the decision of the government to do the right thing and end the exclusion of women returning from maternity leave from the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme. It defied logic for the government to dig their heels in on the issue when everyone accepted that the exclusion of these women was unfair and amounted to discrimination.

“Sinn Féin had established some weeks ago that legislation was not needed to deal with this issue and that the Minister simply had to instruct the Revenue Commissioners to act – just as he had done to fix other problems with the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme.

“It will be a relief to many women that the government has finally accepted what Sinn Féin has been saying and has now moved to deal with this problem.

“This is a victory for common sense. Undoubtedly this comes as a direct result of women across the country speaking out and demanding an end to this discrimination.”