Holidays and Public holidays payment during Maternity Leave.

wmpdd3

OK, so when you on maternity leave you get paid for you holidays and public holidays, by your employer, as if you were in work.

But, what if you decide not to go back to work after maternity, do you not get paid for these?

tatli_lokma

wmpdd3 wrote: »

OK, so when you on maternity leave you get paid for you holidays and public holidays, by your employer, as if you were in work.

But, what if you decide not to go back to work after maternity, do you not get paid for these?

I don't think you have it quite correct, but I may be wrong. My understanding is that you still accumulate holidays just as you would were you working. At the end of your maternity leave you can then use your holidays. If you were not to return you would be entitled to get these days as paid holidays or use them towards your notice period. For example at the end of your official maternity, you take a further 3-4 weeks (or whatever you had accrued) and then return following that. If you were to leave, you would have 3-4 weeks hols to either use instead of notice or you could be paid for those days.
Thats as far as I know, but I could be wrong

wmpdd3

Yes, sorry thats what I meant, except usually the holidays you have accrued fall outside the holiday year so you have to be paid for then rather than taking them. Usually there us a choice with public holidays, you can add them to your maternity leave and get paid for them wile still off or come back to work at the end of your leave and get paid for them.

So yes I suppose the best way to go about this is to ask the employer to consider any holidays accrued as notice given?

mrsbyrne

If you take any or all of the 16 weeks unpaid maternity leave entitlement, you are also accruing annual leave and public holidays in this period. Just be aware that you should write to your employer 4 weeks before your leave is due to finish and ask him to give you the holidays from that date, if that's what you want.
although most employers agree to this, they are not obliged to by law, and would be entitled to give you an alternative date for the holidays.

Eoin

And in case they top up the social welfare payments so you're on full pay during maternity leave, there might be a clawback clause in the contract if you don't return afterwards.

wmpdd3

Good point but chance would be a fine thing!