Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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311. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if a person’s time on maternity leave is credited as a contributory period, either paid, credited, reckonable contribution and so on for the purposes of the social insurance fund and access to certain benefits; if such a period on maternity leave is not treated as a credited period for their contributions record, her plans to change the regulation governing this for persons on maternity leave; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [29953/20]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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A person on maternity leave will automatically be awarded credits while they are in receipt of maternity benefit. These credited contributions keep the person's record up to date for benefit entitlement purposes.

If an individual avails of unpaid statutory maternity leave they must get their employer to complete an application for maternity leave credits when they return to work and return this application to the Department in order to have unpaid maternity leave credits applied to their contribution record.

I hope this clarifies the position for the Deputy.