Neasa Hourigan (Dublin Central, Green Party)
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453. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if a person on unpaid maternity leave is entitled to make contributions to a private pension during this period; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [36507/24]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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My Department has no role in setting the rules for payment of contributions under occupational pension schemes or pension products or for contractual terms in respect of unpaid maternity leave.

During a period of qualifying maternity absence, occupational pension schemes are required to ensure that a member:

• continues in membership of the scheme, and

• continues to accrue rights under the scheme,

during any period of qualifying maternity absence in the same manner as if she were at work and being paid normally during that period.

There is no obligation to pay an employee or provide her with pension benefits during any period of maternity absence which is not a qualifying maternity absence.

Nothing in the Pensions Act, 1990 (as amended) prevents an occupational pension scheme from providing special, more favourable treatment for women in connection with pregnancy or childbirth or makes unlawful any act done in compliance with the Maternity Protection Acts 1994 to 2022 or the Adoptive Leave Acts, 1995 and 2005.

Scheme rules can also provide for members to purchase additional service for periods where there is a break in reckonable service.

Therefore, the rules of the occupational pension scheme and the contract of employment will determine whether contributions are payable in respect of periods of unpaid maternity leave.

Where a person is a contributor to a personal pension product such as a PRSA or makes Additional Voluntary Contributions in their own right and not through their employer, it may be possible for the person to continue to make individual contributions during any periods of unpaid leave subject to any Revenue rules that apply in relation to tax relief.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.