Organisation of Working Time Act, 1997

From April 1^st 1999, employees annual leave must be calculated by one of the following methods:

1. where an employee works at least 1,365 hours in a leave year, the employee is entitled to 4 working weeks annual leave (20 days min)

If the number of hours worked is less than 1,365, annual leave must be calculated as follows:

2. where an employee works at least 117 hours in a calendar month, they are entitled to 1/3 of a working week for that month.  (For example, if an employee works 120 hours per month, and the normal working week is 4-days (30 hours per week), the employee is entitled to 10 hours per month.  This equates to 120 hours per annum or 4 working weeks).

Or

3. 8% of the total hours worked in a leave year, subject to a maximum of 4 working weeks per annum.

^{_{NB: If an employee is covered by more than one of the above calculation methods, he/she will be entitled to whichever separate calculation results in the greater amount of annual leave.}}