{"id":385947,"date":"2026-04-07T07:18:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T07:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/385947\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T07:18:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T07:18:19","slug":"the-public-want-more-bank-holiday-weekends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/385947\/","title":{"rendered":"The public want more bank holiday weekends"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Government is facing calls for additional bank holiday weekends to be added to the calendar.<\/p>\n<p>The country currently enjoys ten bank holidays a year, which is far less than the European average of 13 long weekends.<\/p>\n<p>The February Bank Holiday was first introduced in 2023 and marks the first time a female Saint has been acknowledged in Ireland.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"700\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/good-friday-bank-holiday.jpg\" alt=\"A Calendar showing Good Friday 2025 Pic: juvaida khatun\/Getty Images\" class=\"wp-image-1631955\"  \/>Good Friday 2025 Pic: juvaida khatun\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Opposition parties such as the Green Party and People Before Profit have called on the Government to consider adding more bank holidays.<\/p>\n<p>The<a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.ie\/irish-news\/push-for-ireland-to-introduce-three-more-bank-holidays-in-line-with-eu-neighbours\/a306996607.html\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.independent.ie\/irish-news\/push-for-ireland-to-introduce-three-more-bank-holidays-in-line-with-eu-neighbours\/a306996607.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> Irish Independent<\/a> reports that an additional bank holiday would cost the country around \u20ac355 million.<\/p>\n<p>The publication added that a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbp.ie\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">People Before Profit<\/a> spokesperson is hopeful of an additional three bank holidays.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"700\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Patricks-Day-Parade-2026-Dublin-7.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1755726\"  \/>The St Patrick\u2019s Day parade in Dublin. Pic: Tom Honan<\/p>\n<p>The idea is that the long weekends could be the first Monday of July, the last Monday in September and the last Monday in November.<\/p>\n<p>A survey carried out by the paper found that 80% of people would be up for another long weekend, with just under a quarter appealing for it to take place on Good Friday.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s been a lovely couple of weeks with Bank Holidays galore \u2014 the St Patrick\u2019s Day weekend took place just two weeks before <a href=\"http:\/\/www.extra.ie\/tag\/easter\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Easter<\/a>, and the May Bank Holiday will take place in four weeks time.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"700\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/easter1.jpg\" alt=\"easter\" class=\"wp-image-1759737\"  \/>Grandmother and her two granddaughters, all wearing playful bunny ears headbands, joyfully enjoying chocolate easter eggs while sitting together on a cozy sofa at home. Celebration concept<\/p>\n<p>Following that, the June Bank Holiday falls on June 1, and the August Bank Holiday weekend takes place on August 3.<\/p>\n<p>There will be some reprieve for a few weeks before the Halloween Bank holiday takes place on October 26.<\/p>\n<p>As it stands, July, September and November are the only months that don\u2019t have a bank holiday weekend.<\/p>\n<p>A bank holiday weekend results in workers getting an additional day off, be that the day of the holiday or a day in return.<\/p>\n<p>If the holiday falls on a day not deemed a normal working day, such as a Saturday or Sunday, workers are still entitled to a benefit for the holiday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Government is facing calls for additional bank holiday weekends to be added to the calendar. The country&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385948,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-385947","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}