Our staff regularly work "sleepovers", which may be included as working time for the purpose of the Organisation of Working Time Act. Is this therefore considered to be regular overtime and they should be entitled to holiday entitlement in respect of these overtime hours (necessity to do sleepovers is in contract of employment). What should this, if eligible, be paid at (NMW, hourly rate or pro-rata sleepover rate)?

Posted in : First Tuesday Q&A ROI on 6 January 2015
Elaine Mettler
Arthur Cox
Issues covered:

The Organisation of Working Time Act, 1997 (the “Act”) provides statutory minimum entitlements for all employees to holidays and public holidays (except members of An Garda Síochana and Defence Forces).

Holiday entitlements are based on the number of hours worked by an employee in a leave year. The Act defines ‘working time’ as “any time that the employee is (a) at his or her place of work or at his or her employer’s disposal, and (b) carrying on or performing the activities or duties of his or her work.” Whether “sleepover” time constitutes working time depends on the nature of the arrangements, i.e. whether employees are effectively on call during these periods.

Recent case law suggests

Already a subscriber?

Click here to login and access the full article.

Don't miss out, start your free trial today!

Are you fully aware of the benefits of Legal-Island's Irish Employment Law Hub? We help thousands of people like you understand how the latest changes in Irish employment law impact your business through a mix of case law analysis and in-depth articles. All delivered right to your inbox.

We help you to understand the ramifications of each important case from Ireland and Europe.

We help you ensure that your organisation's policies and procedures are fully compliant with Irish law.

You will receive regular updates on Irish employment law including case law reviews, legislative changes, topical updates as well as answers to your burning questions through our Q&A feature.

You will have 24/7 access to the Employment Law Hub so you can research case law and HR issues when you need to.

Already a subscriber, now or Start my free trial today

Back to Q&A's This article is correct at 02/09/2015
Disclaimer:

The information in this article is provided as part of Legal-Island's Employment Law Hub. We regret we are not able to respond to requests for specific legal or HR queries and recommend that professional advice is obtained before relying on information supplied anywhere within this article.

Elaine Mettler
Arthur Cox

The main content of this article was provided by Elaine Mettler. Contact telephone number is +353 1 618 0000 or email elaine.mettler@arthurcox.com

View all articles by Elaine Mettler