Annual leave

Under the Organisation of Working Time Act the time at which annual leave is taken is decided by your employer. This decision is informed by work requirements and the opportunities for rest and recreation available to you.  However, your employer also must consider your need to reconcile work and family responsibilities. 

All employees, regardless of status or service, qualify for paid holidays. In the case of agency workers, the party who pays the wages is the employer and is responsible for providing the holidays/public holiday entitlement. 

Depending on time worked, holiday entitlements should be calculated by one of the following methods. 

If you work at least 1,365 hours in a leave year you are entitled to: 

• four working weeks (unless it is a leave year in which you change employment) 

If you work less than 1,365 hours in a year you are entitled to: 

• one third of a working week for each calendar month in which you work at least 117 hours; or 
• 8% of the hours you work in a leave year (subject to a maximum of four working weeks). 

Changes to the Organisation of Working Time Act, 1997 mean that with effect from 1 August 2015: 

• employees are entitled to accrue statutory annual leave while on periods of certified sick (i.e. during both paid and unpaid periods of sick leave);
• employees who cannot, due to illness, take annual leave during the leave year in which it accrued or during the normal carryover period of six months, will be able to carry over such leave for a period of 15 months after the end of the leave year in question; and  
• employees who leave their employment within 15 months after the end of the leave year in which they accrued statutory annual leave while on sick leave and which was untaken, are entitled to payment in lieu of this leave.

Under the Act, payment in lieu of the minimum statutory holiday entitlement is prohibited unless the employment is terminated.  If you leave your job you are entitled to payment for any untaken annual leave. 

After having worked for eight months in a leave year, you are entitled to an unbroken period of two weeks annual leave.  This period may include one or more public holidays. 

 All hours worked qualify for paid holiday time. This includes time spent on maternity leave, parental leave, force majeure leave, adoptive leave, the first 13 weeks of carer's leave, and annual leave and public holidays taken during the calculation period.

The holidays must be given to the employee within the leave year or, with the employee’s consent, within six months of the following leave year. It is the employer’s responsibility to ensure that the employee takes their full statutory leave allocation within the appropriate period. Employees may, with the consent of the employer, carry over holidays in excess of statutory minimum leave to a following leave year. 

If you are on maternity leave or additional maternity leave you will continue to accrue annual leave.  

If you fall sick while on annual leave and you produce a medical certificate, the period of sickness should be recorded as sick leave and not as annual leave. 

You should be paid for annual leave in advance of taking leave.