The Industrial Relations (Northern Ireland) Order 1993

Exercise of right to return to work

23.—(1) An employee shall exercise the right to return to work under Article 20 by giving written notice to the employer (who may be her employer before the end of her maternity leave period or a successor of his) at least twenty-one days before the day on which she proposes to return of her proposal to return on that day (the “notified day of return”).

(2) An employer may postpone an employee’s return to work until a date not more than four weeks after the notified day of return if he notifies her before that day that for specified reasons he is postponing her return until that date, and accordingly she will be entitled to return to work with him on that date.

(3) Subject to paragraph (4), an employee may—

(a) postpone her return to work until a date not exceeding four weeks from the notified day of return, notwithstanding that that date falls after the end of the period of twenty-nine weeks beginning with the week in which childbirth occurred; and

(b) where no day of return has been notified to the employer, extend the time during which she may exercise her right to return in accordance with paragraph (1), so that she returns to work not later than four weeks from the end of that period of twenty-nine weeks,

if, before the notified day of return (or the end of the period of twenty-nine weeks), she gives the employer a certificate from a registered medical practitioner stating that by reason of disease or bodily or mental disablement she will be incapable of work on the notified day of return (or the end of that period).

(4) Where an employee has once exercised a right of postponement or extension under paragraph (3)(a) or (b), she shall not again be entitled to exercise a right of postponement or extension under that paragraph in connection with the same return to work.

(5) If an employee has notified a day of return but there is an interruption of work (whether due to industrial action or some other reason) which renders it unreasonable to expect the employee to return to work on the notified day of return, she may instead return to work when work resumes after the interruption or as soon as reasonably practicable afterwards.

(6) If—

(a) no day of return has been notified;

(b) there is an interruption of work (whether due to industrial action or some other reason) which renders it unreasonable to expect the employee to return to work before the end of the period of twenty-nine weeks beginning with the week in which childbirth occurred, or which appears likely to have that effect; and

(c) in consequence, the employee does not notify a day of return,

the employee may exercise her right to return in accordance with paragraph (1) so that she returns to work at any time before the end of the period of twenty-eight days from the end of the interruption notwithstanding that she returns to work outside the period of twenty-nine weeks.

(7) Where the employee has either—

(a) exercised the right under paragraph (3)(b) to extend the period during which she may exercise her right to return; or

(b) refrained from notifying the day of return in the circumstances described in paragraph (6),

the other of those paragraphs shall apply as if for the reference to the end of the period of twenty-nine weeks there were substituted a reference to the end of the further period of four weeks or, as the case may be, of the period of twenty-eight days from the end of the interruption of work.