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Carrying over annual leave should be uncommon. Managers should ensure that employees take their full leave entitlement each year. In cases where work requirements mean it is not possible to grant leave at a particular time, managers can allow employees to carry over any untaken leave under certain conditions.
You can only carry forward untaken annual leave for two consecutive years subject to the following conditions:
You must discuss your remaining annual leave with your line manager in sufficient time before the end of the leave year to enable you to take that leave during the current year, provided it is granted. And, the manager’s refusal to grant leave must only be due to the requirements of official work.
Staff on Cycle Year 1 or Cycle Year 2:
- You should agree with your manager that you can carry over leave which cannot be taken due to business requirements
- Leave will carry over automatically
- No further action is needed
Staff on Cycle Year 3:
Carryover of leave from Cycle Year 3 into the subsequent Year 1 is restricted to only that which remains of the leave that accrued in Year 3.
Any leave remaining that carried into Year 3 will be forfeit at the end of the year if it has not been taken.
If you have leave remaining from that accrued in Year 3 and you wish to carry over, you must:
- Discuss and agree this carryover with their line manager before the end of the leave year
- Apply to carry over the leave through the HR portal
- You must complete applications to carry over leave from year 3 to year 1 according to the provisions of Annual Leave Circular 27/2003
Year 3 Carryover Exceptions
Exceptions to the restrictions of carryover in Year 3 only apply to:
- Officers who were on Maternity Leave during Year 3
- Officers who were on extended sick leave, where 28 or more consecutive days of the sick leave occurred within the final 6 months of Year 3.
Exceptions to Year 3 carry over rules do not apply under any circumstances other than those outlined above. Neither line managers nor HR departments have discretion to approve carry over at the end of Year 3 for business reasons.
As outlined in Circular 08/2023 new arrangements in relation to the carryover of annual leave will come into effect from the 2024 year onwards.
From 2024 onwards there will no longer be a 3 year carry over cycle. Instead, all officers will be permitted to carry over a balance of leave at the end of each leave year, the amount that officers are allowed to carry is limited in each year to a maximum of what was accrued in the year previous.
Any leave that is carried into a year, must be taken by a certain time frame or it will be forfeit. Leave can only be carried over once, i.e. leave that is carried into a year, cannot be carried over to another year.
In order to facilitate the taking of carry over leave in the year into which it has been carried, annual leave will be taken in the following order;
a. Statutory leave carried in (to be taken within the first 6 months of the leave year into which it has been carried)
b. Non-Statutory leave carried in (to be taken by the end of the leave year into which it has been carried)
c. Statutory leave accrued
d. Non-statutory leave accrued
Please see bottom of page for explanation of statutory and non-statutory annual leave.
Statutory Carry Over:
Statutory carry over can be rare, as statutory leave should normally be taken in the year in which it is accrued. In exceptional circumstances where statutory leave could not be taken in the year in which it is accrued, it can be carried over to the subsequent leave year (following manager approval), but must be taken within the first 6 months of the leave year into which it is carried or it will be forfeit.
In order to facilitate the taking of statutory leave carried into a year, the first of the annual leave balance to be taken in any leave year will be the statutory leave that was carried into that year.
In order to facilitate the transition from the current 3 year cycle onto the new carry over arrangements, the following transitional arrangements will apply:
For those in Year 1 for 2023/24 – All leave remaining at the end of the current year will be allowed to carry over to the leave year starting 2024, as this would fall in line with the provisions under the new scheme
For those in Year 2 for 2023/24 – As a once off arrangement those in Year 2 will be permitted to carry over up to two years’ worth of leave, on the condition that any leave carried into the year starting 2024 must be taken before the end of the 2024 leave year. This exception is to ensure that those in Year 2 of the current provisions are not disadvantaged by not being allowed to carry over to a 3rd year.
For those in Year 3 for 2023/24 – The current Year 3 rules will apply at the end of the current year whereby any leave remaining from that carried into Year 3 will be forfeit at the end of the leave year if not taken by that time.
Under current provisions the non-statutory leave carried into Year 3 is the last leave to be taken during the leave year, as an example, if an officer carried 10 non-statutory days into Year 3
- If they had more than 10 days remaining at the end of the leave year, they would forfeit the 10 days and would be permitted to carry over the leave in excess of those 10 days e.g. if there were 15 days remaining, 10 days would be forfeit and 5 days could be carried
- If they had 10 days or less remaining, all remaining leave would be forfeit e.g. if there were 8 days remaining, all remaining leave would be from the non-statutory leave carried into Year 3 and would be forfeit
All officers are entitled to annual leave, including full-time, part-time, temporary and casual workers. This entitlement is set out in the Organisation of Working Time Act, 1997 and is known as your statutory annual leave entitlement.
All annual leave in addition to the statutory entitlement, is known as your non-statutory annual leave entitlement.
The type of leave (statutory or non-statutory) that remains in your balance at the end of the year, will affect the timeframe of when this leave will be forfeit when carried into the following year.
For more information on carrying over of annual leave please refer to our FAQ document: Carryover of Annual Leave Frequently Asked Questions.
