Aengus Ó Snodaigh
Question:270. Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh asked the Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment the estimated yearly cost of establishing a new annual public holiday. [46581/26]
View answerThursday, 18 June 2026
Questions (270)
Written answers
An assessment of the annual cost of a new public holiday was conducted by the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment in conjunction with the Department of Social Protection as part of a broader report on the ‘Cumulative Impact of Changes to Working Conditions’ published in 2024. As there is limited historical information on the impact of an extra public holiday within an Irish context, data from other jurisdictions was also studied to guide any additional estimates within an Irish context.
The 2024 report estimated that the total cost of an additional public holiday would be €355m at the time of publication. It should be noted that an additional public holiday would not have a uniform impact across all sectors of the economy, with some sectors likely to incur greater cost shares.
Utilising sectoral elasticities applied to Gross Value Added the report estimated the cost of €355m to the Irish economy, which corresponds to a decline of 0.06% in GDP or 0.11% on a GNI* basis based on the most recently available full year data for 2024. This is indicative of the fact that the Irish economy is highly dependent on service and high-value manufacturing activities.