Employer Resources Newsletter - March 2026

Managing Annual Leave as the Public Holiday and Summer Seasons Approach

As we move toward the point of the year where public holidays and the summer season come into view, many organisations will notice an increase in annual leave requests. This time of year provides an ideal opportunity for employers to take a proactive approach to managing annual leave, ensuring employees avail of their entitlements while maintaining adequate staffing and operational cover.

For HR teams and line managers alike, forward planning and clear communication are key to ensuring that annual leave is used appropriately throughout the year and does not lead to a large unused portion left outstanding toward year-end.

Encouraging Employees to Take Their Annual Leave

Organisations have a duty of care to maintain, as far as practicable, the health, safety and welfare of their employees. One important aspect of supporting employee wellbeing is ensuring that employees take their annual leave and have sufficient opportunity for rest and recuperation.

A simple but effective measure is to send regular reminders to employees regarding their annual leave balance. Some organisations issue quarterly reminders encouraging employees to review their leave balance and plan time off in advance.

A more targeted approach may involve contacting individual employees where leave balances remain high or where no leave has been booked for the remainder of the leave year. Such correspondence can outline the employee’s remaining entitlement and encourage them to submit leave requests within a specified timeframe.

Legal Considerations

Annual leave entitlements are governed by the organisation of Working Time Act 1997. While employees are entitled to statutory annual leave, the legislation provides that the timing of annual leave is ultimately determined by the employer.

When determining the timing of leave, employers must take into account:

• The employee’s opportunities for rest and recreation
• The employee’s family responsibilities
• The need to consult with the employee.

Organisations must also ensure that employees receive their full statutory annual leave entitlement within the relevant leave year.

Where an employee is unable to take their statutory leave during the leave year, the employer must allow the leave to be carried forward and taken during the first six months of the following leave year.

Employers should also refer to their own internal annual leave policy, which may permit a limited number of days to be carried over into the new leave year.

Managing Increased Leave Requests Around Public Holidays

Demand for annual leave frequently increases around public holidays such as St Patrick’s Day and Easter Monday, when employees often seek to extend the holiday into a long weekend or short break.

Without appropriate planning, a surge in employee requests can create staffing challenges. Organisations may wish to consider:

• Identifying periods where leave demand is likely to be highest
• Encouraging employees to submit requests well in advance
• Setting limits on the number of employees who can be absent at the same time
• Rotating priority for popular leave periods to ensure fairness.

Taking these steps early can help ensure that operational requirements are maintained while supporting employees’ leave plans.

Establishing Clear Leave Procedures

Clear policies and procedures play an important role in managing annual leave effectively, particularly during busy periods.

Employees should understand:

• How and when leave requests should be submitted
• Any notice requirements for annual leave
• How competing requests will be managed
• Whether requests are handled on a first-come, first-served basis or subject to operational needs.

Having a structured process helps ensure that decisions are applied consistently and can minimise disputes or misunderstandings.

Supporting Managers to Monitor Leave Balances

Where it is not practical to correspond individually with employees about their leave balances, line managers can raise the issue during regular one-to-one meetings. Discussing annual leave as part of routine check-ins helps ensure employees remain aware of their outstanding entitlement.

Managers may also wish to document these discussions and confirm in writing that employees have been encouraged to schedule their outstanding annual leave. Maintaining records of these communications demonstrates that the organisation has taken reasonable steps to encourage employees to take their statutory leave.

In situations where employees do not submit leave requests by an agreed deadline, organisations may need to allocate leave to ensure the employee takes their statutory entitlement. In such cases, employees must receive at least one month’s written notice of the proposed leave dates.

Maintaining Adequate Staffing Coverage

Alongside managing leave requests, organisations should also consider how best to maintain service delivery and operations during periods of high leave activity. Practical steps may include:

• Cross-training employees so key roles can be covered
• Temporarily redistributing work within teams
• Planning workloads in advance of peak leave periods.

Forward planning is particularly important for organisations operating in customer-facing or regulated environments, where staffing shortages may have operational implications.

A Proactive Approach

The start of the public holiday period and the approach of summer provide a useful opportunity for organisations to review their annual leave procedures and ensure that systems are in place to monitor and manage leave balances effectively.

Regular communication with employees, clear policies, and appropriate managerial oversight can help organisations strike the right balance between operational requirements and employees’ entitlement to rest and recreation. Taking a proactive approach now can reduce the risk of leave accumulating toward the end of the year while also supporting employee wellbeing and helping to minimise burnout and workplace stress.

Adare is a team of expert-led Employment Law, Industrial Relations, and best practice Human Resource Management consultants. If your organisation needs advice, support, or guidance about compliance requirements or any HR issues, please contact Adare by calling (01) 561 3594 or emailing info@adarehrm.ie to learn what services are available to support your organisation.

Dublin Office: (01) 561 3594 | Cork Office: (021) 486 1420 | Shannon Office: (061) 363 805

info@adarehrm.ie | www.adarehrm.ie

Accountant Wins €85,000 After Dismissal for Raising Spending Concerns

Background

The Respondent was a registered friendly society which provided mutual aid and health cover to public sector workers. The Complainant was recruited into the role of General Manager in August 2022. He commenced employment with the Respondent in September 2022 and was dismissed in September 2023 without notice.

Summary of Complainant’s Case

The Complainant submitted that he had been an accountant since 1989. Before joining the Respondent, he was working as an accountant in the public sector for 22 years. He was appointed to the role after an exhaustive process involving three interviews. Governance had been identified as a key issue the Respondent wanted to improve. The Respondent had traditionally been run by seconded members of the public sector body it served, and the Complainant was the first accountant to take on the role. While he was the senior employee in charge of day-to-day operations of the Respondent, it was ultimately governed by an elected committee of members.

In December 2022, the Respondent held their Christmas party. The Complainant discovered that after the party a tab had been opened in the hotel bar where many of the attendees were staying. He did not think this was appropriate and closed it. In January, he objected to an open bar at a retirement function, but the committee voted to approve it against his wishes.

The Complainant had a performance review in March and nothing adverse was brought up and he was later confirmed in his post when his probation period ended.

The Complainant began raising concerns about the level of expenses associated with meetings. There were a number of committees which oversaw the work of the Respondent, and these were meeting throughout the year. The number of meetings was comparatively higher than they had been in recent years. He began advocating meeting in head office and reducing the number of meetings generally. The head office was in Dublin so meetings there would have also reduced the expense costs associated with Dublin members’ attendance. He was also concerned that expenses were flat rate and unvouched.

The Complainant was also raising his belief that there was a legal requirement to do a five-year evaluation of assets. This would be an independent evaluation carried out by an independent company. The costs of the evaluation were significant and expected to cost in the region of €30,000. It then became an issue that committee members were asserting the Respondent had a derogation. The Complainant saw no evidence of any derogation, and it became an issue with the relevant committee. The Complainant later outlined to the committee by email that they did not have a derogation.

In September 2023, the Complainant received a phone call in the middle of the day requesting him to meet the Chairman and a committee member. They attended the meeting with a letter in their hand. The Complainant was told he had been terminated and given the letter. He asked for a reason, but none was given. The Complainant handed over his laptop and left. He also noted that he was not paid any notice.

Summary of Respondent’s Case

The Complainant was dismissed summarily, and the Respondent had since offered to pay him in lieu of his notice. The Respondent defended its position by noting that the Complainant did not have locus standi to avail of the protections of the Unfair Dismissals Act.

Findings and Conclusions

Date of Dismissal – The Facts

The Complainant commenced employment with the Respondent on the 26th of September 2022, he was employed under a contract of employment which provided that the Respondent would provide the Complainant with three months’ notice of a termination.

The Adjudicator noted that the Complainant was dismissed on the 8th of September 2023 by way of a letter handed to him that day by the Chairman on the Respondent.

Date of Dismissal - The Law

The ‘date of dismissal’ is defined in Section 1 of the Unfair Dismissals Act as the earliest date that would be in compliance with the provisions of the contract of employment.

Date of Dismissal – Findings

The Respondent failed give the Complainant prior notice of termination and the date of dismissal was the date when the contractual notice period would have expired, that being three months from the 8th of September 2023 which would be the 9th of December 2023.

The Dismissal

On the date of dismissal, as defined by the Act, the Complainant was employed by the Respondent for more than one year and the Complainant was not therefore excluded from the protections of the Unfair Dismissals Act. Under the Unfair Dismissals Act, the dismissal of an employee is an unfair dismissal unless, having regard to all the circumstances, there were substantial grounds justifying the dismissal. The burden is on the Respondent to identify substantial grounds, and they have not done so.

The Complainant was unfairly dismissed.

Redress

The Complainant earned €110,000 per annum. He was unemployed for a year and then obtained a role on a lower salary of €70,000. On a plain reading of the figures, he had a significant loss arising from the dismissal at the time of the hearing which came to approximately €130,000. There was an ongoing loss which was harder to quantify.

On the basis that the Complainant’s evidence did not make out sufficient efforts to mitigate his loss, the Adjudicator was of the view that an award of €85,000 was just and equitable in all the circumstances.

Decision

The Adjudicator ruled that the dismissal was unfair and awarded the sum of €85,000 in compensation.

Recommendations for Employers

In this Case, the Complainant had less than one year’s service when he was summarily dismissed by the Respondent which was a nonprofit organisation. Since taking up his role as an accountant with the organisation, the Complainant noted a number of expenditure-related items that he advised the Respondent to review.

While the Respondent sought to defend its position by arguing that the Complainant did not complete the necessary service requirement to avail of the protection of the Unfair Dismissals Act, the Adjudicator noted that the date of dismissal under the legislation is the date when the contractual notice period would have expired. In this case, three months after the alleged date of dismissal.

For nonprofit organisations in particular, cases like this demonstrate how informal employment practices often adopted in good faith or due to limited resources, can create substantial exposure to the risk of legal claims. Assumptions about employee legal entitlements, a lack of documented procedures, or decisions made without following the principles of fair procedures invite the risk of costly WRC claims.

Enhanced Code of Practice on Right to Request Remote Work to be Developed

Minister for Small Business, Retail and Employment Alan Dillon TD, and the Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment Peter Burke have published the statutory review of Ireland’s remote work request provisions under the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2023.

The statutory review shows that, when used, the legislation is working effectively in practice, with 94% of employee requests approved, either fully or in part. Organisations also report minimal administrative burden operating the system.

Next steps

Following on from the review, Minister Dillon confirmed he will request the Workplace Relation Commission to revise and strengthen the Code of Practice to:

• provide clearer templates and guidance for employees applying for remote work
• support employers to give comprehensive and transparent reasons for decisions
• clarify the timelines set out in the legislation
• support more structured consultation between employers and employees when considering remote work options and promote use of the Workplace Relations Commission mediation services.

No legislative changes are proposed, as the review found that the legislation is operating effectively and proportionately.

We will monitor the progress of the WRC’s review of the Code of Practice and provide updates on any further developments.