The Christmas roster in Irish hospitality: public holidays, leave and rest over the busiest fortnight

For an Irish pub, hotel or restaurant, the fortnight from the last Friday before Christmas to New Year's Day is the busiest of the year: office parties, family meals, the St Stephen's Day crowd and a late New Year's Eve. It's also when three public holidays fall within eight days, when everyone wants the same days off, and when tired staff are most likely to be rostered back too soon. This guide sets out the rules that apply and a planning routine, using the 2026 dates.

The festive dates for 2026

Looking ahead, in 2027 Christmas Day falls on a Saturday and St Stephen's Day on a Sunday. And remember the other festive myth: Good Friday is not a public holiday in Ireland either.

What staff get for each festive public holiday

For each public holiday, an eligible employee is entitled to whichever of these the employer chooses (s.21 of the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997):

1. a paid day off on the day;
2. a paid day off within a month;
3. an extra day of annual leave;
4. an extra day's pay.

In practice over Christmas, the WRC's guidance plays out like this:

• You're closed and they'd normally have worked (for example a restaurant shut on Christmas Day): they get their normal day's pay.
• You're open and they work (a hotel serving Christmas lunch to residents, or the St Stephen's Day session in the pub): they're paid for the hours worked, plus a paid day off or an extra day's pay.
• They aren't normally rostered that day: an extra one-fifth of their normal weekly pay.

Full-timers qualify straight away. Part-timers and casuals need 40 hours worked for you in the 5 weeks ending the day before each holiday. Our full guide to public holidays in hospitality covers the pay rates.

The Christmas casual and the 40-hour test

Example. You take on a student on Monday 7 December 2026 for about 12 hours a week. By Christmas Eve she's worked around 32 hours for you: under 40, so no public holiday benefit for Christmas Day or, most likely, St Stephen's Day. By New Year's Eve she may well have passed 40 hours in the previous 5 weeks, in which case she qualifies for New Year's Day. Check each holiday separately.

The 21-day and 14-day deadlines

An employee can ask, at least 21 days before a public holiday, which benefit they'll get. If you haven't told them at least 14 days before, they're entitled to the day itself off with pay. For 2026:

Easiest of all: tell everyone in November, in writing, which benefit each festive holiday carries.

Annual leave requests over Christmas

The employer decides when annual leave is taken, but section 20 of the Act says you must:

• take into account the employee's family responsibilities and opportunities for rest;
• consult the employee (or their union) at least one month before the leave starts.

So for leave starting Monday 21 December 2026, you should have consulted by Saturday 21 November at the latest. A practical routine:

1. Set a request deadline, for example 1 November, and say so in October.
2. Publish the rules: how many people per section can be off at once, and how ties are broken (for example whoever didn't get Christmas last year goes first).
3. Decide and tell people by mid-November, so the one-month consultation is met and staff can book travel.
4. Record the outcome against each person, including any requests you refused.

Annual leave and public holiday benefit are separate entitlements under the Act, so keep them separate in your records too. See annual leave for hospitality staff.

Rest rules over a busy fortnight

The Organisation of Working Time Act doesn't take a break at Christmas:

• Breaks: 15 minutes after more than 4½ hours, 30 minutes after more than 6, mid-shift. Party nights are when they get skipped.
• Daily rest: 11 consecutive hours between finishing and starting again. A team that closes after a Friday 12.30am last sale and clean-down at about 1.15am can't start before 12.15pm on Saturday.
• Weekly rest: 24 consecutive hours off in each 7 days after a daily rest, or two 24-hour periods in the following week if you can't give one this week. That second option is useful in the week of 21 December, but the time off has to actually happen the following week.
• 48-hour average: usually over 4 months, or 6 where the work has a foreseeable surge. A heavy December can be balanced by a quiet January, inside the same reference period.

New Year's Eve and New Year's Day

New Year's Eve is a normal licensing night unless you have a special exemption order: Citizens Information says the latest time alcohol can be served for drinking on the premises under one is 2.30am. Whoever closes at 3am needs 11 hours' rest, so they can't work before 2pm on New Year's Day. Plan your New Year's Day lunch team from people who were off or finished early the night before.

Under-18s over the holidays

16 and 17-year-olds keep their own limits: no more than 8 hours a day and 40 a week, a 30-minute break after 4½ hours, 12 hours off between shifts, and in licensed premises an 11pm finish only on a night not before a school day. See young workers in licensed premises.

Licensing over Christmas and Easter

Only two points are worth putting on the roster planner, both from the Intoxicating Liquor (Amendment) Act 2018:

• Good Friday was taken out of the licensing restrictions, so pubs can trade on Good Friday. It's still a normal working day for staff, not a public holiday.
• Christmas Day was left in the restrictions, so a bar can't trade as normal on 25 December. The same Act keeps the provision allowing sales to people lodging in the premises, which is why hotels serving residents work differently.

Check the detail for your own licence with your solicitor. For normal opening hours, see the pub roster template.

A two-week Christmas roster plan

1. October: confirm bookings, functions and opening hours for 21 December to 2 January. Announce the leave deadline.
2. Early November: collect availability for the whole fortnight in one go.
3. Mid-November: decide leave and tell staff which public holiday benefit applies.
4. Late November: build and publish the full fortnight, not week by week.
5. Each day: check the 11-hour gaps after late closes and parties.
6. January: record who worked which public holiday and what they received; give any days off in lieu within a month.

Doing it in ShiftComplete

Staff set availability for the whole festive fortnight from their phones, weeks ahead. You add events and day notes (for example "Office party, 60 covers, +2 floor" or "Closed Christmas Day"), build a draft roster in seconds that spreads the late closes fairly, and publish it to every phone and inbox. Holiday requests can come in from staff phones for a manager to approve, so you have a dated record of who asked first. It helps you keep the roster and hours records a WRC inspector asks to see. €1.99 per active staff member per month, free for 60 days, no card.