Maura Fay

It's part of the rules around crashes that you must have a staff member for every three babies.

I spoke to Elaine Dunn, chairperson of the Federation of Early Childhood Providers, which represents around 1,600 childcare providers nationwide, and put that point to her.

She told me that, in fact, most services now no longer provide baby rooms anymore.

So the department say it's part of the government's first five strategies to support parents to be at home for a child's first 12 months.

And in a two parent family, if you combine maternity, paternity and parents leave, that equates to 46 weeks paid leave.

They also say that in the current programme for government, it contains commitments to examine the extension of parents' leave and to look at introducing pay-related parents' benefit.

That would link parents' benefit payment to their previous earnings rather than paying everyone the same weekly flat rate.

And they add that the national childcare scheme provides subsidies for families with children as young as 24 weeks old.

So if you're having a bit of downtime at work or a bit of quiet time, you should be allowed to be on your phone?

What about a system where you would be required to lock away your phone for the day?

We're talking a couple of millilitres, David.

However, to get those few drops of liquid, it can be very challenging for mothers who have given birth several weeks ahead of schedule for a number of reasons.

They may have gone through a traumatic birth.

They may have given birth early due to illness.

And they may have not had a chance to get to any breastfeeding classes.

And to navigate all of that needs a lot of counselling and support.

So to help mothers in those situations, the neonatal intensive care unit at the Coombe Hospital has done a number of things.

In 2019, they appointed a dedicated lactation specialist to the unit.

Then in May 2024, they appointed a dedicated speech and language therapist.

It's a very new and evolving role.