Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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294. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she will provide in tabular form the number of recipients of the maximum payment of maternity benefit in each year from 2007 to 2012; and the expected number of recipients who will receive a lower payment in 2014 as a result of the recently announced changes to the payment. [44658/13]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Maternity benefit is an income maintenance payment awarded to eligible women for a 26-week period on foot of a confinement. Entitlement to this benefit for employees is contingent on entitlement to statutory maternity leave. In 2013 my Department will spend €297.4m on Maternity Benefit and Adoptive Benefit, in respect of a weekly average of 21,800 recipients.

The information requested by the Deputy in respect of recipients of the maximum payment of maternity benefit in each year from 2007 to 2012 is not readily available. Budget 2014 provided that, from January 2014, a standard weekly rate of €230 will be paid to persons qualifying for maternity benefit. It is estimated that the number of persons who will receive a lower payment in 2014 as result of the Budget 2014 change will be a weekly average of 16,317.

Persons currently in receipt and those receiving benefit before January 2014 will not be affected by the change – they will continue to receive between €217.80 and €262 per week for the duration of their leave.