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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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So how much are you looking forward to having the day off on Monday? Having three days if you're not working Saturday or Sunday, if you're not rostered to work or you don't work those days. Just having that extra day on Monday for a long weekend. Could you have more of them in the year? Should we have more of them in the year?
I saw Roderick O'Gorman, the Green Party, its leader last week, looking for an extra public holiday on top of the 10 we already have.
Chapter 2: Why is the debate about bank holidays in Ireland relevant today?
But Richard Boyd Barrett, people before profit, you want how many additional public holidays?
Well, we want, ideally, we'd like to get to 13. Currently, we get 10 public holidays. And we brought a bill forward there a while ago. Now the government ruled it out of order because it would be a cost on the exchequer, they said, which is a way of killing things.
But we were looking for three extra public holidays, which would bring us still a lot less than many across Europe, but the average is 12 and we're at 10. We're saying 13, but even to bring us to the EU average, I think would make a big difference to people's lives. That would say give us one bank holiday each month.
And people, it does make a huge difference to people's just general sense of happiness and well-being. I think, to be honest, it would actually boost people's productivity if people have, you know, economic concerns, because I just think you're more energized when you have a decent break on a regular basis. And we're way down the league table.
I mean, like if you add statutory holidays in, we also have less than most countries in Europe. I mean, like to give some of the best examples, Austria have 25 statutory days and they have 13 public holidays, whereas we've 20 statutory days and only 10 public holidays. Other countries like Lithuania, very, very high.
Croatia, Spain, all these countries, when you total it all up, are having four, five and six days more off between holidays and bank holidays.
I'm just looking at the list here. Cyprus gives 15 public holidays. Bulgaria, Croatia, Iceland, Malta and Spain have 14. Notice the sunnier countries seem to have more public holidays perhaps at times. Exactly.
Appreciate the good weather.
The French only have 11, but beneath us, we actually have more than the Danes, the Netherlands and Scotland have nine and England and Wales only have eight.
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Chapter 3: What proposals have been made for additional public holidays?
I mean, there's some estimates that it's a cost to some business. But on the other hand, I think Bridget's Day, there was an estimate that 1.5 billion extra, or no, sorry, not extra, but in total was spent on groceries and tourism and all that kind of stuff on Bridget's Day, which is the extra holiday we got a while ago.
In February.
In February. in February. So there is a huge boost as well in terms of tourism, retail expenditure, restaurants, you know, all sorts of people benefit. So I would say you gain what you, you gain on the swings, what you lose on the roundabouts.
Okay. Put on your headphones there, please, because we've got Damien McCarthy with us, Managing Director of HR Buddy, which is a HR consultancy firm. Damien, what do you make of this idea?
Well, look, Matt, I suppose, and good afternoon, Richard, as well. I suppose, floating the idea of, you know, more days off, you know, public holidays, it will always be received positively. Yes, there is EU countries with higher numbers than us, but regards to the league table, I suppose you're not comparing like for like.
So if you take Spain, who may have 14 days or something like that, and we have 10, okay, we're behind them on the league table, but all 10 days are covered under the Organization of Working Act in Ireland. So you're paid for all 10 days, or you get a day in lieu, or you get double time if you go into work on the public holiday. In Spain, it could fall on a Saturday or Sunday.
So you're not getting paid for all 14 public holidays in Spain. So you're kind of comparing apples and oranges there. The other thing that I would say is that we need to be very sensible if we're going to add additional public holidays, because the last one we introduced in 2023, which was the early February public holiday in its first year that lost the economy 355 million euros.
So every employer and every worker in the country who pays their tax and the employees who see tax money going out of their paycheck and their payslip every week now have a February public holiday where they stay at home from work, get paid maybe from their SME employer, another added cost to the SME employer.
on top of everything else that has been introduced over the last number of years, which is a cost to businesses and it can threaten business and threaten jobs as well.
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Chapter 4: How do Ireland's bank holidays compare to the EU average?
Patrick's isn't too bad. Easter is fairly neutral. The February one is a disaster. So I think Richard is missing a trick here, actually. I think Richard should be going to the government looking and asking questions about the 350 million euro squander in February and looking for a change in public holidays. I think that must be changed first before we look at additional ones.
I think every additional public holiday, it must serve everyone. It must be fair to everyone. It must be costed properly. And it must only have a positive impact on our economy, not a negative impact.
Okay, I'm going to put that to Richard.
Yeah, yeah. First of all, on the Spain thing, I don't agree. Because first of all, yeah, one or two of them will fall at the weekends. But in total, if you take in their statutory, and they do get paid for their statutory holidays, they get 22. So they get two more of us in terms of statutory holidays. And then they have... Four more of us in terms of public holiday.
So their total is 36 days off as against 30 here. So they're a lot better off than we are.
One second, Jamie, you can come back in one second.
So even if a few of them fallen on the weekends, they're still doing better than us by a fair margin. And that is true of most of those countries that I mentioned, Austria, Germany. Lithuania, Luxembourg, up at 37 in total days when you add in the bank holidays and their annual leave.
On the economic point, I think the government's figures are spurious, or at least they're not taking in the gains. that also will come from these things. And I think there would be a significant and is a significant boost in terms of retail, the cultural area, hospitality, tourism. There's all sorts of areas that will gain also.
And I also just think we can't, you know, we have to look at people's mental health and well-being. I mean, a lot of young people in this country, we're having a big problem in terms of retaining young people
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