If you only have two weeks of your annual leave left and you go on a two week holiday to the sun and you get food poisoning while on holiday and you are in bed for three or four days, once you have the relevant medical certificates, you are entitled to insist that your employer give you a further three or four days annual leave in lieu.
The entitlement to paid annual leave is set out in the Working Time Directive (2003/88/ECJ).
The thinking behind this is that employees deserve annual leave and the purpose of annual leave is to enable the employee have some time for relaxation and leisure. If he spent some or all of that time ill then he or she should not lose out as a result and the European Court of Justice decided that they are entitled to further leave to make up for the time lost while sick on holidays. This decision was made some years ago. Although it does not appear to be widely known, this right already existed in Irish law.
If therefore you are sick while on annual leave, get a medical certificate to prove that you were ill and the length of time you were ill, you can then insist that your employer give you a further period of annual leave to make up the time lost.
Kevin Brophy
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