Maternity Leave Payment

Yellow_Blue

Hi All,

Would really appreciate an advise. Planning pregnancy but preference is to move and give birth in fathers country with better level of medicine and childcare.

I have maternity payment of 100% salary for first 6 months by my current Irish based employer.
I wonder if I am entitled to that payment if I give birth and stay in another EU country?

Obviously I'm not talking about gov payments but rather payment form my employer.

Peregrinus

If you have a contractual entitlement to six months' paid maternity leave, I would be very surprised if it was a term of the contract that you should spend your maternitly leave in Ireland. So their shouldn't be a problem. But check with your employer.

Mrs OBumble

Most contracts with that kind of provision also require uou to return to work following your maternity leave.

Provided you are doing that in Ireland, I cannot see a problem.

But if you want to work from another country, you are likely to have to move onto that country's employment conditions and local salary (assuming your company has a base there). I cannot see the Irish branch being happy to agree to this

Yellow_Blue

Peregrinus wrote: »

If you have a contractual entitlement to six months' paid maternity leave, I would be very surprised if it was a term of the contract that you should spend your maternitly leave in Ireland. So their shouldn't be a problem. But check with your employer.

Thank you so much.
I am more concerned about certificate of birth ( or whatever proof you need to present to employer in order to receive payment ) if it needs to be irish one?..

I am a bit cautious talking to employer)) but I will probably do it at the end.

Frankie19

Your employer won't need a birth cert. They will more than likely ask for a letter from your doctor confirming pregnancy and due date to process the maternity benefit.

You might want to look into any tax implications though. If you spend a certain amount of time outside the country of employment the company can be liable for additional tax so you more than likely will have to tell them.

Also you won't be asking the company to fill out a mat B2 form as you won't be claiming state benefit....that could raise eyebrows as HR will be expecting to fill it out and provide bank details to the revenue if they usually pay it on top of their own maternity benefit.

Yellow_Blue

Frankie19 wrote: »

Your employer won't need a birth cert. They will more than likely ask for a letter from your doctor confirming pregnancy and due date to process the maternity benefit.

You might want to look into any tax implications though. If you spend a certain amount of time outside the country of employment the company can be liable for additional tax so you more than likely will have to tell them.

Also you won't be asking the company to fill out a mat B2 form as you won't be claiming state benefit....that could raise eyebrows as HR will be expecting to fill it out and provide bank details to the revenue if they usually pay it on top of their own maternity benefit.

Thank you! Some food for though.

Any idea on time-frame for giving that letter from the doctor?

I didn't realized you can get both state and employer's benefits. This complicates things. Looks like I'll have to notify employer in any case..

sharpsuit

My read is that you would be entitled to Maternity Benefit if you moved to another EU country to give birth and spend your maternity leave. See the attached guidelines: https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/20c706-operational-guidelines-maternity-benefit/

This presumes that you have paid sufficient contributions to be entitled to a benefit payment (as opposed to social assistance).

This means that the State will pay maternity benefit (on foot of your contributions) and the employer will top up your salary, i.e. the exact same as an employee remaining in Ireland.

Best of luck!

Victor

Check that you are entitled to medical and childcare services in that other country. You / the child might not be entitled to these based solely ont eh father's citizenship.

Yellow_Blue wrote: »

I didn't realized you can get both state and employer's benefits.

This is more complicated than you might think. If you are entitled to €200/week from the state, the employer will pay you your salary less the €200.

Spending 6 months abroad puts you at risk of having to contribute to the other country's welfare system and paying different, possibly higher taxes.

GerardKeating

Yellow_Blue wrote: »

I have maternity payment of 100% salary for first 6 months by my current Irish based employer.

Most employeers will pay full salary "less the state maternity benifit", otherwise you get more than 100% of salary.

Yellow_Blue wrote: »

Obviously I'm not talking about gov payments but rather payment form my employer.

But kind of you are, you might not be entitled to the state maternity benefit if you go abroad, even to another EU country.

If the other country is EU, you might be entitled to some form of health care.

Also how will you get to this other country, most airlines will not let you fly if more that 37 weeks pregnant, and to avoid this, you might have to finish work before maternity benefit kicks in.

And you might have to quarantee for two weeks when you arrive.