Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There is no suggestion that public services would be undermined. People have an entitlement to take their annual leave. If the Tánaiste reads the legislation, it provides for cases where leave cannot be taken, not cases where workers are banking their leave. I note that the Minister's first port of call is to blame the workers themselves for not taking their annual leave or to suggest somehow that they are trying to game the system. They have an entitlement to benefit. Rest and recreation are extremely important. Notwithstanding the fact that they cannot go outside of their county or go abroad, people need to have a rest from work, but where that cannot be taken or they cannot avail of that rest, it is only fair that they be given the legal right. We have the Organisation of Working Time Act because we cannot just rely on the goodwill of employers. Legal entitlements have to be laid down for workers to ensure that they can get the benefit of their annual leave. In that regard, it is important that those workers would have the capacity to carry it forward, not just for the first six months but for the entirety of 2021 and into 2022, in a scenario where they cannot take their annual leave. It is not that they are, as the Minister has suggested, trying to game the system or bank their annual leave so that they can have three months off in a block and crash public services.

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