People can turn 25 days annual leave into 60 for the coming calendar year.

Conor Pope, Irish Times Consumer Affairs Correspondent, revealed to The Hard Shoulder this takes some creative thinking.

"You're not getting 60 days off - you're exploiting, cleverly, the bank holidays and timing all of your holidays to coincide with those bank holidays," he said.

"Obviously, that's going to include the weekends and it's going to include the bank holidays.

"It's only going to work for people who routinely get weekends and bank holidays off".

Conor said if done right, this will see people getting at least nine days off at a time.

"[It's] not just 60 days work-free, 60 days work-free which include six breaks of at least nine days at a time," he said.

"So you could effectively go on six, nine-day holidays using this mechanism of exploiting the bank holidays."

Extra bank holiday

Conor said this year is particularly different, as it features a new bank holiday in February.

"This is the other thing: holidays aren't cheap," he said.

"The holiday market has rebounded in this country, and I think an awful lot of people are hopeful we're leaving the pandemic behind us when it comes to travel.

"It's obviously become more attractive this year than any other year because of the fact that we get an extra bank holiday.

"That bank holiday falls on Monday February 6th: so if you were to take four days leave from the Tuesday - February 7th - you'd get your first nine day stretch without work.

"That would be running from the 4th of February to February the 12th.

"Then you have Paddy's Day - a Friday - so you'd have to take the four days before Paddy's Day, and that would give you another nine consecutive days".

'Easter time is key'

Conor said April is a key month.

"Good Friday isn't actually a bank holiday, but it is a day that many people are given off by their employer," he said.

"Then you have Monday April the 3rd - so if you take your four days in the week leading up to Good Friday, and the four days in the week after Monday April the 3rd, you get another 16 days stretch off.

"That gives us 34 days in total, and you've only taken 16 days leave."

He said other key times are around the May, June and August bank holidays.

"You could take another four days on one of those bank holidays," he explained.

"Then you've got the October bank holiday.. and then obviously you have Christmas.

"You have to judiciously take one days' leave on the 28th or 29th, and that could see you getting another 10 days off in a row," he added.