AS MOTHER’S DAY approaches, expectant and new mums are feeling the pressure. Employer supports taken for granted in the past can no longer always be relied upon. It is therefore vital to make sure that you’re claiming your full statutory entitlements.

When it comes to maternity leave, there are certain rights that remain unaffected by the recent deterioration in the employment market. Firstly, if you become pregnant, you are automatically entitled to maternity leave from work of 26 weeks.

If you have made enough PRSI contributions, you will receive maternity benefit from the Department of Social and Family Affairs. The amount of this benefit will depend on your earnings.

Back in the pre-credit crunch days, when companies were flush and recruiters still talked of a “talent shortage”, many employers were happy to top up this statutory benefit, so that the employee continued to receive their normal level of income (or at least a significant portion of it) while on maternity leave. Unfortunately this valuable benefit is now being axed by some cash-strapped employers desperate to cut costs wherever possible.

Unless an employer is contractually obliged to make some sort of contribution to employees on maternity leave, there is no legal obligation on them to do so. It is simply a matter of generosity and affordability.

In the second quarter of 2008, the recruitment firm Principle HR carried out a study which showed that only about 60 per cent of Irish employers provided maternity benefits to their employees on top of statutory entitlements.

Half of those employers continued paying the person their full salary (less their social welfare benefit) for 26 weeks, while 31 per cent made some contribution but not at that person’s full levels of pay.

However, according to Audrey Hughes, managing director of Principle HR, employers have become less likely to top up maternity benefits since that survey was carried out, as the downturn has taken hold.

“What employers are doing at the moment is they’re looking at efficiencies and they’re reducing any unnecessary cost,” she says, “and they’re not obliged to top up on the statutory payment.

“Sometimes it’s a case [that] the business just can’t afford it. It’s not a case [that] that particular employee isn’t worth it; they just can’t afford it at this point.”

Large companies tend to have policies of paying full maternity benefits based on the employee’s basic pay, she says.

“If you have a large organisation, such as a bank . . . and their policy for the last say 10 or 15 years has been to top up maternity benefits to [the employee’s] basic pay, those types of organisations haven’t yet stopped doing that because it would have such a negative effect on their PR [and morale],” she says.

However other organisations – especially small and medium businesses – are now assessing maternity benefits on an individual basis in light of how the company is doing. Some companies will have to start cutting back now, she adds.

The upshot of this for employees planning on starting or increasing their family is that they should not assume that their employer will be in a position to top up their social welfare benefit, even if they have done so in the past. It would be wise to budget for the possibility of a sharp drop in their income during maternity leave.

It also means it is more important than ever for women to check that they are being taxed correctly. In recent years, a number of cases emerged where employees had overpaid tax to the tune of several thousand euro while on maternity leave.

Statutory maternity benefit payments are not taxable, but in the past a number of employers failed to adjust their payroll systems to take account of this, which resulted in the overpayment of tax by some employees.

At the end of 2007, Revenue wrote to employers to inform them of the correct tax treatment, which should have cleared up the confusion. However, if you are due to take maternity leave (or have taken it already), it is still worth checking with your employer and contacting Revenue to make sure that you don’t pay any more tax than absolutely necessary.

In addition to basic maternity leave of 26 weeks, women are entitled to take a further 14 weeks of unpaid maternity leave, Hughes says.

It seems that many women are deciding not to take advantage of this statutory entitlement now, not because they can’t afford it, but because they fear for the security of their jobs.

Employment law prevents employers from making an individual redundant while she is on maternity leave, “but, from a woman’s perspective, they feel they are more likely to be chosen for redundancy because they’re seen as an additional cost maybe, or they’re not seen [to be] performing,” she explains. They fear that if they are not in work, their job is in jeopardy, she adds.

Another problem arising is that if, upon returning to work after having a baby, women discover that they are not being treated the same as before maternity or that their job has changed, they are now deciding to stick with it. In the past they would simply have moved on and looked for another job.

Hughes says that unless they are absolutely sure that the next job is in a stable company, people won’t move because they would lose out on their entitlement to a redundancy payment if job cuts materialised.

“Whilst they may be unhappy in their current job, they’ll stick it out,” she observes. “If you’re in your job say five or six years and you’re let go, you’re going to get a redundancy payment. If you jump ship and you go to a new job, you are not entitled to a redundancy payment for two years.”

Mothers, and indeed employees in general, are also aware that some employers operate a “last in, first out” policy when making redundancies and as a result are even more nervous about switching jobs.

In the current jobs market it’s definitely a case of better the devil you know, for the moment at least.