maternity leave

jimmychambers

my girlfriend is about 7 weeks pregnant and has not yet told her employers she is pregnant. they announced on friday that they would be closing in Ireland in 2 months. she is concerned as to where this leaves her with maternity leave. will she get any? or will she have to go on the dole. she has been working for the last 5 years if this makes any difference. any advise at all would be appreciated.
cheers

Downtime

Probably not as she will no longer be employed by the company when she goes on maternity leave and therefore will not had this entitlement but she may get redundancy.

Nevyn

Maternity leave is not paid by an employer its paid by the dept of welfare and given that she has been in work and paid her PRSI for the year before she will get maternity benefit.
http://www.citizensinformation.ie/categories/social-welfare/social-welfare-payments/social-welfare-payments-to-families-and-children/maternity_benefit

Some employers do play wages minus the maternity benefit but they don't' have to under law.

Downtime

Yes but she must be in insurable employment up to the first day of her maternity leave.

angelfire9

Surely she will get redundancy?

Tell her to pop into the local citizen's information office they can advise what her options are

Congrats on the baby
Bad luck on the work front though!

Butterflylove

If your contract of employment ends within 16 weeks of your expected date of confinement and you satisfy the social insurance (PRSI) conditions, Maternity Benefit is payable from the day after the date on your P45.

Quoted from the link Thaedydal provided.

So no sadly not, note that even with a redunancy payment she could be waiting months before been paid etc. Id advise to get in touch with Local welfare and get necessary forms etc to applied for benefits if you can at all.