A proposal to extend parental leave from 18 to 26 weeks has been referred to the Oireachtas Committee on Justice and Equality following a debate in the Dáil.
The change has been put forward by the Social Democrats.
The party's joint leader Róisín Shortall said that working parents lead incredibly busy lives and the pressure can be enormous.
She said the high cost of childcare meant that, for some parents, there was little financial gain from returning to work.
She said that some decide not to go back and others return to protect their employment.
Deputy Shortall said the current regime for parental leave was very weak and the minimum required under European law.
She said the average length of combined maternity and parental leave among EU member states was 97.8 weeks and, in Ireland, the maximum amount was just 60 weeks.
The Government has said it will not oppose the bill.
However, it said it feels the focus should be on extending parental leave on a paid basis and work is under way to bring forward legislative proposals in that regard.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has previously said the Government was committed to both paid and shared parental leave, but it is thought it could be some time before change on either front becomes a reality.
Employers' group Ibec has questioned if extending parental leave is the right direction to go in.
Director of Employer Relations Maeve McElwee said mothers and fathers of young children already have, in many cases, up to 80 weeks of parental leave available to them.
She questioned if extending this was the right way to provide flexibility and balance to the wider workforce.
Ms McElwee said flexibility can be difficult and expensive for employers, particularly those with small businesses and that policy makers had to be cognisant of the costs of recruiting and replacing people in this regard.
She said that work-life balance and the cost to employers had to be balanced and, while employers manage workplace flexibility as much as they can, the multiplicity of legislation in this area is a considerable problem for them.
