This is not acceptable, forty years after the introduction of legislation in Northern Ireland.

Half of the women who responded to an Equality Commission investigation into the employment experiences of pregnant workers and mothers in Northern Ireland believe that their career opportunities have been negatively affected by their pregnancy or maternity leave.

That is one of the findings of ‘Expecting Equality: a Formal Investigation under the Sex Discrimination (Northern Ireland) Order 1976’, which the Equality Commission for Northern Irelandpresented at a conference in the Titanic Building in Belfast earlier this week.