Public holidays falling on weekends
While it is clear about the entitlements of employees regarding time off work and public holidays, there is no specific provision in law governing what happens when a public holiday falls on a weekend in Ireland.
Where a public holiday falls on a weekend, you do not have any automatic legal entitlement to have the next working day off work. This occurred over Christmas 2004 where Christmas Day (25th December) and St. Stephen's Day (26th December) fell on a Saturday and Sunday respectively. (New Year's Day 2005 also fell on a Saturday). You are entitled to the normal arrangements concerning employment and public holidays - that is;
In these cases, Monday 27th December 2004, Tuesday 28th December 2004 and Monday 3rd January 2005 are not public holidays.
- A paid day off within a month of the public holiday
- An additional day of annual leave
- An additional day's pay
- The nearest church holiday to the public holiday as a paid day off
Your employer can require you to attend work on those days
and this does not tally with the OASIS information above. In this case many people will receive the Monday in lieu of the Saturday New Year's Day public holiday but there is no obligation on the employer to grant this and they may give a day in lieu at a later date. It's also a bit confusing that they use one asterisk for public holidays and two for bank holidays which some people may take to mean that bank holidays are automatically also public holidays when this is not the case (e.g. Good Friday).New Year’s Day* - Sat. January 1st (Public Holiday Mon. 3rd)
Are you sure about that? Surely full time (and maybe other) employees have a statutory entitlement to public holidays or days off in lieu and the fact that they normally work the day on which it falls is irrelevant? Perhaps the employer is not abiding by the regulations correctly?elcato said:For New years day which is a Saturday, only people who normally dont work saturdays will get a day in lieu. I know some hairdressers who will be working on the following Monday as they effectively get Saturday off.