Social Welfare (Consolidation) Act, 1981
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CHAPTER 3 Maternity Allowance | ||
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Title to and duration of allowance. |
24.—(1) Subject to this Act, a woman shall be entitled to a maternity allowance if— | |
[1952, s. 20] | ||
(a) it is certified by a registered medical practitioner or otherwise to the satisfaction of the Minister that it is to be expected that she will be confined in a week specified in the certificate (hereafter in this section referred to as the expected week of confinement), not being more than the prescribed number of weeks after that in which the certificate is given, and | ||
(b) she satisfies the contribution conditions in section 25 . | ||
[1979, s. 23] | ||
(2) Subject to the following provisions of this section, the period for which a maternity allowance is payable shall be the period of 12 weeks beginning with the 6th week before the end of the expected week of confinement, but— | ||
(a) if the woman who is entitled to the allowance dies, the allowance shall not be payable for any subsequent week, | ||
(b) if the date of the confinement occurs after the expected week of confinement, the allowance shall, subject to paragraph (a) be payable until the expiration of the 6th week after the week in which that date occurs. | ||
(3) Regulations may modify subsections (1) and (2) in relation to cases where— | ||
(a) it is certified by a registered medical practitioner or otherwise to the satisfaction of the Minister that a woman has been confined, and | ||
(b) no such certificate as is referred to in subsection (1) (a) has been given. | ||
[1974 (No. 2), s. 17] | ||
(4) For the purposes of this section, a Sunday shall not in any week be treated as a day of entitlement to a maternity allowance and, accordingly, the amount payable by way of such allowance for any other day of a week shall be one-sixth of the appropriate weekly rate. |