Ireland has substantially fewer bank holidays than some of our European neighbours.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin has stated that the government is going to consider adding an additional bank holiday to the 2021 calendar for Ireland.
The extra bank holiday was one of the many course of action suggested by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media as part of their
Tourism Recovery Plan.
The idea would be to have an additional bank holiday during the off-peak season, to encourage tourism within Ireland, especially after the travel industry became one of the biggest financial sufferers of the pandemic.
Speaking to
The Journal, Martin said the following:
"I think that is one potential, yes, that we could do in terms of reflecting and acknowledging the work of many workers in different fields and in different sectors. We’ll consider it."
Currently, Ireland has a total of nine public holidays: New Year's Day, St Patrick's Day, Easter Monday, Christmas Day and St Stephen's Day are all bank holidays. Additionally, the first Monday in May, June, August and the last Monday in October are bank holidays.
Comparatively, Bulgaria has 17 bank holidays every year, Austria has 15 bank holidays per year, Spain has 14, while Finland and France both have 11.
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