Returning to Ireland

Stedmunds

Registered User
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Just looking for some advise.
Myself and my husband are returning to Ireland from the UK as he got a new job.

I am currently on maternity leave here, having had a baby four months ago and do not intend to go back to work until my eldest is settled and possibly until after he is in school in September.

My question is...will I be entitled to social welfare benefits/maternity leave? Also how do I start claiming for child benefit for my two children?
 
Your best starting point to have these and many other questions you're likely to have answered is: http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/ for example, at: http://www.citizensinformation.ie/e..._families_and_children/maternity_benefit.html

This includes the statement:
"Insurance from employment in another country
If you were previously insurably employed in a country covered by EU Regulations and you have paid at least one full rate PRSI contribution in Ireland, you may combine your insurance record in that country with your Irish PRSI contributions to help you qualify for Maternity Benefit. You must be in insurable employment in Ireland currently and have paid your most recent PRSI contribution in Ireland."

See also: http://www.citizensinformation.ie/e...s_to_families_and_children/child_benefit.html

If the specific question isn't answered, contact details are given for the relevant place to look for more information.
 
I would assume (based on the experience of a friend who did similar) that you would continue to receive your maternity benefits in the UK for the duration of your leave, presumably still paid into your UK bank account which you can then transfer/withdraw here (if you take the unpaid portion, then presumably that would be unpaid). Assuming you're not planning on returning to your UK job, you would then resign and at that point would have to look into claiming unemployment here based on your UK stamps - not sure how long you have to wait if you have chosen to leave a role, I think there's an extra period before you can claim if you've quit rather than been let go. Like I say, this is what my friend did, but I don't know if there were other ways she could have gone about it.

I would have thought claiming children's allowance should be fairly straightforward once your husband is working here. I'd give them a ring and ask, I'm sure they'll be helpful.

Good luck - to my surprise I found it a lot harder figuring out how things worked on moving back to Ireland than I did moving to the UK: it feels much less straightforward to find information like this. My one piece of advice is to try and change your addresses on your bank accounts, etc, before you leave - it is surprising how many banks/utilities don't have numbers that can be easily rang from outside the UK.
 
Also, you should be aware of the Lifetime Community Rating loading on taking out private health insurance if you are older than 35...


Not sure if you qualify for the exemtpion, but thought it worth mentioning.
 
There is a weird thing here that the UK and Ireland systems don't link up through a computer system...all very paper based.

You will also have to establish habitual residence for sw
 
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