Unpaid maternity leave

i'm on unpaid maternity leave at the moment, i am due to return in july but i'm thinkin of leaving work and look for a job closer to home for childcare reasons.
I was told i'm due 4 weeks pay as my company is backdating paid maternity leave, they have agreed to pay for 26 weeks now and i only got 22 weeks from them. This won't come through until May at least. My paid leave ended in Feb 08.

If i leave now, will i still be entitled to this?

I've been told that i can claim from social welfare while i'm looking for somewhere closer. So if i don't leave now i'm losing money from the social welfare as at the moment i'm getting nothing.

any help or suggestions?

You better check your employee handbook - most places as far as I know would actually claim back any additional pay on top of statutory maternity if the woman leaves within 6 months of coming back to work , or does not come back at all.

You are only entitled to the statutory benefit and any additional payments will be subject to terms and conditions.

but the 26 weeks is now statutory this is why they are backdating this and giving us an extra 4 weeks as it was in talks while i was on paid leave and the union and they agreed for it to be backdated to 2007, so they are going to contact others who were on maternity leave and pay this also to them, don't want them to know i'm thinking of leaving and i don't have copy of handbook

If its just the statutory they are paying - then you'll be entitled to the extra 4 weeks no matter what - as they would have received this from Social Welfare.

I was just referring to when they pay you your full salary for the pregnancy.

If your maternity leave commenced after March 1st 2007 then you should have been paid Statutory Maternity Benefit for 26 weeks. If you have only been paid for 22 weeks you are entitled to the other 4 weeks of Statutory Benefit.

It should not have been necessary for the Unions to get involved or maybe it was to get the Company to pay the extra 4 weeks top-up