Female government employees should be entitled to nine months' maternity leave, six of them at full pay, according to the Federal National Council. The council is due to discuss the controversial issue of maternity leave for government employees when it meets tomorrow.

The council will debate an FNC report which calls for six months' maternity leave at full pay and three months' leave without pay with their employers' permission. Although the proposal is less than the six months at full pay and an optional six months at half pay which the FNC originally proposed, the amendment still differs from the government's proposal of three months' maternity leave at full pay.

Under both proposals an employee will be entitled to take maternity leave five times during her employment. The issue of maternity leave has become the most controversial in the civil service draft law which has still to be ratified by the FNC and the Cabinet.

According to an FNC report on the costs of maternity leave, extracts of which were published in the Arabic daily Al Ittihad yesterday, the FNC's latest proposal would cost Dh118.8 million per year or Dh594 million over five years.

In comparison, the government's proposal of three months maternity leave at full pay would cost Dh39.6 million per year or Dh198 million over five years. The previous proposal of six months paid leave and six months leave on half pay would have cost Dh127.3 million per year or Dh636.5 million over five years, the report states.

According to official government figures used to produce the report and estimate the costs of the two maternity leave proposals, there were 1,701 applications for maternity leave last year. This was the second highest number of leave applications after annual leave.

The report states that there were 10,006 married UAE national females working in the federal government last year, or 17.8 per cent of the government's work force. The report estimated that 30 per cent of unmarried national female employees would marry within five years and that 17 per cent of those who do marry would apply for maternity leave.

The report states that the difference in cost between the government's proposal and the FNC's "is of no importance" in the context of establishing the right demographic structure and increasing the number of nationals.

The report also states that the FNC proposal would help in the upbringing of a "healthy and nurtured generation" of children. According to the FNC figures there were 56,346 federal government employees last year including 25,032 nationals.