Over 70% of women have taken time off work due to period pain, according to a recent survey by the largest public service union in Ireland, Fórsa.
It has called for menstrual health policy in every Irish workplace.
Over 96% of the 1,800 people who answered the Forsa survey say they favoured the introduction of a menstrual-friendly policy in their workplace.
Last month, the Spanish government said it is planning to introduce paid leave for women with painful periods.
This would make Spain the first country in Europe to offer such leave, after Italy made an unsuccessful bid to introduce it in 2017.
Labour leader Ivana Bacik and Chair of the Oireachtas Women's Caucus Senator Fiona O'Loughlin said they would welcome discussion around the topic.
"We in Labour have brought a bill already on reproductive health-related leave," Ms Bacik said.
"We might be able to see to amend that bill to provide for the sort of menstrual health-related bill that we’ve seen being considered now in Spain," she added.
Labour has support from the Government in bringing forward the Bill in the Seanad.
"If we were to see a change made to that Bill to also include menstrual health-related leave, I think there would probably be very strong support for that too," Ms Bacik said.
Senator O'Loughlin said it is important to see how Spain fares with its attempt to introduce this new type of leave and what type of consequences would follow.
She said having a discussion about this would be an important first step and has some ideas about what needs to be done in the possible introduction of such leave in Ireland.
"We need to have wide stakeholder engagement," she said.
Any aspects involving challenges for businesses, particularly small businesses, or women seeking employment or promotion, would have to be engaged in fully.
Additionally, "any type of sick leave that we would be talking about either in this situation or indeed in any other would be certified by doctors," she said.
But would women be willing to provide such information to their employers?
Medical Director of Dublin Well Woman Centre Shirley McQuade thinks they would not. This is why getting the "period leave" to the right people might be tricky.
"In the clinic sometimes, I see women who have a lot of lower abdominal pain with periods to the point where they faint from time to time," she said.
Those women would often ask for a certificate that is not specifically saying they have menstrual problems. Usually, the certificate would say abdominal pain, since the women do not want to divulge to their employers exactly what is happening.
Another stakeholder that could be impacted by the leave are the SMEs.
John Barry, Managing Director of HR company Management Support Services, and member of ISME, has ten employees, seven of them being women.
"What I recognise is that for some women menstruation can be very, very painful," he said.
"So, there’s no issue with that. The difficulty is the consequence of additional compulsory leave entitlement to people in small businesses," he added.
Another recent development is that the Tánaiste is at an advanced stage of introducing up to ten days' paid sick leave for all employees, regardless of their illness.
The Bill is progressing through the Oireachtas and is on target to be enacted by the summer recess, according to the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.
The new leave entitlements being brought in by the Government as part of its social agenda is concerning SMEs.
"Small businesses' staff are multifunctional," Mr Barry explained, "not just down to one department, and if they’re missing, it can have an adverse effect on the department".
Without financial supports from the Government when it comes to such leave, small businesses would be hit. Wages there represent a far more significant portion of their expenditure compared to large companies employing many people.
"The cost is not just in what you pay in wages," Mr Barry said, "but maybe what you have to pay either in overtime for someone to cover the work, or if you have part-time workers, maybe paying them more money to do additional hours".
According to Ms Bacik, the State needs to support employers - particularly small employers - in offering their staff access to leave for reproductive health reasons or indeed for menstrual health reasons.
"I think also there’s an awareness among many employers that employees are already taking time off under other headings, in other words - as sick leave or as holiday leave, so it may not in fact be too much of an additional cost burden," she said.
