Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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242. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the estimated full combined cost of increasing maternity benefit by €20, €30, €40, and €50 per week; while extending maternity benefit by two, three, four and five weeks in tabular form [23153/16]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Maternity Benefit is a payment made for 26 weeks to employed and self-employed pregnant women who satisfy certain pay related social insurance (PRSI) contribution conditions in order to avoid the need for them to work pre and post-delivery of their baby. The original scheme was introduced in 1970 and was extended to include self-employed mothers with effect from June 1997.

It is currently estimated that next year my Department will spend approximately €252 million on Maternity Benefit in respect of an average of 20,500 recipients per week.

The table below estimates the additional cost, over and above the current estimated expenditure on Maternity Benefit in 2017. The additional costs include increasing the weekly rate of Maternity Benefit above the current weekly rate of €230 and simultaneously increasing the duration of Maternity Benefit above its current 26 week duration.

Any changes to the rate or duration of Maternity Benefit could also have implications for Adoptive Benefit, Health and Safety Benefit and Paternity Benefit. Revised figures for these schemes are not included in the costings above.

These estimated costings are on a full year basis and assume that the increase is implemented from the beginning of January 2017. It should be noted that these costings relate to 2017 and are subject to change over the coming months in the context of emerging trends and associated revision of the estimated numbers of recipients for 2017.