Another question regarding maternity benefit

JTormey

Hi there
I work for one of the HSE hospitals and am on a year long contract which ends in mid July (when I will be 36 weeks pregnant). (Although I have been on annual one year contracts with the HSE since 2004).
My baby is due in mid August.
I had thought that as long as I started my maternity leave before my contract ends, that I would still be entitled to the usual maternity leave payments but someone recently said to me that no, as I am due to finish my work before I am 38 weeks that I am not entitled to maternity leave.
Does anyone have experience of this?
I will of course ask the HR at my work but wanted to see if anyone else had experience of this before me as our HR department seems to try and deny payments to us fairly often unless we put up a fight...
Thanks

The Davestator

I'm not sure about maternity cover, but the EAT doesnt look very favourably on rolling one year contracts in general. Companies have tried this to circumvent redundancy payments and fair procedure in their dealings with staff. Talk to your HR person though soon so its not hanging over you.

Clauric

Hi OP. As far as I am aware, because you have been on more than 4x 1 year contracts, you are considered a full time employee. As such, you are still employed after you start your maternity cover.

This is the section that is interesting, and of more relevance to your question:

Renewal of fixed-term contracts

Employees may not be employed on a series of fixed-term contracts indefinitely. There are 2 possible situations where this arises as follows:

If an employee whose employment started before 14 July 2003 has completed 3 years’ continuous service as a fixed-term employee, the employer may renew their fixed-term contract only once for a period of no more than 1 year.
If an employee whose employment started after 14 July 2003 has been employed on 2 or more continuous fixed-term contracts, the total duration of those contracts may not exceed 4 years.
After this, if the employer wishes to renew the employee’s contract, it must be an open-ended contract unless there are objective grounds justifying the renewal of the contract for a fixed term only.

The Unfair Dismissal Acts 1977–2007 contain a provision aimed at ensuring that successive temporary contracts are not used in order to avoid that legislation. Where a fixed-term or specified-purpose contract expires and the individual is re-employed within 3 months, the individual is deemed to have continuous service.

Therefore, even where an employer excludes the unfair dismissals legislation in the manner described above, a Rights Commissioner or the Employment Appeals Tribunal will consider whether the use of such contracts was wholly or partly to avoid the employee having the protection of the unfair dismissals legislation. If it is considered that this was the case and the contracts were not separated by more than 3 months and the job was at least similar, then the case can be dealt with as if there was continuous employment and the employer will be required to justify the dismissal in the normal manner.

From: Citizen's Information

Thi might also be more suitable for the work forum

whiteandlight

If you weren't pregnant would your contract be renewed? Isn't the law that you cannot be penalised for getting pregnant? If that's the case there's no way they'd be allowed to not renew the contract. Tbh I'd say they'd be on very shaky grounds not renewing it for any reason given you have had the job since 2004. I'm a teacher and the only case that is possible for non renewal after that length of time would be if the job was actually being held for someone else and they came back

JTormey

Thanks so much for the replies. I don't think I made myself clear in my OP.

I don't want to renew my contract w the current job, and my main question is - do maternity payments cover you only to the end of the date of the contract? or are they meant to pay you for the full 26 weeks even if that brings you to a date after the date the contract ends.

Hope that makes sense!

Thanks again!

Clauric

JTormey wrote: »

Thanks so much for the replies. I don't think I made myself clear in my OP.

I don't want to renew my contract w the current job, and my main question is - do maternity payments cover you only to the end of the date of the contract? or are they meant to pay you for the full 26 weeks even if that brings you to a date after the date the contract ends.

Hope that makes sense!

Thanks again!

In that case, when your contract is up, so is your maternity leave. You are still entitled to your maternity benefit, from the State, but your contract is over and maternity leave is over. See the article I linked above

Millem

JTormey wrote: »

Hi there
I work for one of the HSE hospitals and am on a year long contract which ends in mid July (when I will be 36 weeks pregnant). (Although I have been on annual one year contracts with the HSE since 2004).
My baby is due in mid August.
I had thought that as long as I started my maternity leave before my contract ends, that I would still be entitled to the usual maternity leave payments but someone recently said to me that no, as I am due to finish my work before I am 38 weeks that I am not entitled to maternity leave.
Does anyone have experience of this?
I will of course ask the HR at my work but wanted to see if anyone else had experience of this before me as our HR department seems to try and deny payments to us fairly often unless we put up a fight...
Thanks

I think when you are 36 weeks pregnant (after your contract ends) you should start your maternity leave (paid by state) €230 per week. You get 26 weeks so baby will be 22 weeks approx then maybe sign onto jobseekers/start a new job? But if your contract will be renewed but you turn it down they might make you wait you to 6 weeks? I presume you couldn't sign onto job seekers at 36 weeks as you probably won't be "seeking work"? I know you don't want to renew your contract but if you did I presume the hse "top up" your maternity benefit (you will get slightly more than normal wages) so if you work up to 38 weeks then have 24 weeks off on maternity leave, you can take an additional 16 weeks unpaid leave plus you also get your holidays so you probably only have maybe 2 months to work till the end of contact? Or take parental leave which is 16 weeks , your employer might let you take it one or two days a week so you will still get a big chunk of your wages?