Maternity Leave in Ireland
It’s Mat Leave Monday! Today I am talking about maternity leave in the Irish State. As ever, I have no first-hand knowledge about maternity leave in Ireland. If you are actually in Ireland, the best reference I could find is the government pages outlining maternity leave and adoptive leave.
I have never set foot on the Emerald Isle, but after seeing this tourism video, I have to admit that it looks lovely:
Ireland offers new mothers national, government-paid maternity and adoptive leave. It’s administered through the PRSI (Pay-Related Social Insurance) system. Both employees and self-employed people who have paid into PRSI may apply. The qualification rules are somewhat complicated. Depending on whether you are an employee or self-employed, you require between 39 and 52 weeks of PRSI paid over various qualifying periods. The government pages have the complete qualification requirements for maternity benefit or adoptive benefit. There is no legal entitlement to any sort of paternity leave for fathers in Ireland, although they may qualify for adoptive leave if they are a sole adopter.
Maternity benefits are paid for 26 weeks, starting at least 2 weeks before the expected birth, and ending at least 4 weeks after. Adoptive benefits are paid for 24 weeks, starting with the date of placement of the child. The rate for both maternity and adoptive benefit is calculated by dividing your gross wages in the relevant tax year by the number of weeks you actually worked. So, basically, they calculate your weekly wage. You receive 80% of that figure, with a minimum weekly benefit of €230.30 and a maximum of €280.00. These numbers are equivalent to approximately $369.61 CAD and $449.37 CAD, or $297.41 USD and $358.06 USD, respectively.
Birth and adoptive mothers may take an additional 16 weeks of unpaid leave, after their paid leave is over. Birth mothers are also entitled to paid time off for medical appointments and antenatal classes, and adoptive mothers are entitled to paid time off to attend preparation classes or pre-adoption meetings with social workers and other officials.
So that’s the skinny, as well as I can summarize, on maternity leave in Ireland. If you want to catch up on the other countries I’ve covered, check out my entries on Canada (and Quebec), the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. You might notice a theme – I’m sticking with English speaking countries for the time being. Mostly because then I can get up-to-date information from government websites. I may try to dust off my high school French when I run out of available English options, but I make no promises that endeavour will succeed. In the meantime I still have several on my list.
[...] posts comparing mat leave policies in different Western countries. Her most recent post looked at Ireland, though past posts have looked at the UK, Australia and New Zealand. Strocel has also written on [...]
I’ve been enjoying your series here. It’s interesting to see how different countries handle maternity leave. It makes me think that my country doesn’t really value the work that entails mothering… As far as I know moms are guaranteed 12 weeks leave here, unpaid, and she’ll have a job to return to. That’s the extent of the law as I know it (but a mom would probably know it better…) I know my employer takes it further, so for example when I have a child, I can take leave for as long as I have sick days and be paid. Currently, I have about 75 sick days (or 15 5-day weeks), so I feel like I’ve done a good job saving them for when the time comes. If I was to take longer, I’d lose my health insurance as it comes from my job, not my husband’s.
Seems moms in other countries have a much better situation.