Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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1229. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection her plans to examine legislation regarding statutory holiday entitlements (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [24773/18]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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An employee’s entitlement to annual leave is set out in section 19 of the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 (the 1997 Act). Section 19 transposed Article 7 of the original EU Working Time Directive (93/104/EC) – now consolidated by Directive 2003/88/EC. Under section 19 of the 1997 Act, an employee acquires an entitlement to 4 weeks’ annual leave if he or she works at least 1,365 hours in a leave year, or one-third of a working week for each month in the leave year in which he or she works at least 117 hours, or 8 per cent of the hours he or she works in a leave year (but subject to a maximum of 4 working weeks).

The 1997 Act also provides for 9 public holidays in addition to the statutory annual leave entitlements.

Any annual leave entitlements in the contract of employment over and above the statutory minimum will be a matter for negotiation between the employer and employee.

As the legislation on annual leave emanates from an EU Directive, national legislation on annual leave will be affected by rulings of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in cases taken under the EU Working Time Directive. Some of the most significant of these CJEU rulings relate to the accrual of annual leave entitlement during sick leave. These rulings were formally transposed into Irish law by section 86(1) of the Workplace Relations Act 2015 which amended the annual leave provisions in the 1997 Act. The amendments to the 1997 Act provided as follows:

- Employees accrue statutory annual leave entitlement while on certified sick leave.

- An annual leave carryover period of 15 months after a leave year will apply to those employees who could not, due to illness, take annual leave during the relevant leave year or during the normal carryover period of 6 months.

- On termination of employment, payment in lieu of untaken accrued annual leave will apply to leave which was untaken as a result of illness in circumstances where the employee leaves the employment within a period of 15 months following the end of the leave year during which the statutory leave entitlement accrued.

I will continue to monitor any developments at EU level in relation to annual leave entitlements. For the time being, I have no plans to increase the current statutory entitlement, which is, as I have said, a minimum level of leave above which employers and employees are free to agree better terms.

It is worth my pointing out, for information, that the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) provides general information on employment, equality and industrial relations legislation, through the Workplace Relations Information and Customer Service Unit which can be contacted at Lo-call: 1890 80 80 90 or 059-9178990 or via its website www.workplacerelations.ie.