Bonus pay not paid.

Agency worker?

did your company approve the work? Would it be considered overtime ?what is the policy with regards staff not taking holidays and working it instead ?

Why did you take annual leave if you planned to work anyway. That makes no sense. You should have just cancelled your leave.

The person who does your payroll probably has recorded you as being on annual leave and paid you for this and is unaware you worked it. Have you explained yourself properly. Its probably best not to call it a bonus either to avoid confusion.

If you are an employee then the Workplace Relations Commission is who to complain to.

https://www.workplacerelations.ie/en/

Are you sure they understand - If you are going to them and asking when your bonus will be paid they are probably wondering what the hell you are talking about! - no offence but you havent explained the situation well here so Im not confident that you are getting the message across well. You have to go and speak to whoever does the payroll and explain properly that you had agreed to be paid extra for those 2 weeks. They possibly may think you are owed time in lieu.

There's some industries where employees are forced to take annual leave, the finance industry being the one that comes to my mind. The story I heard was some trader basically lost millions partly because he hadn't taken any holidays for years and his brain was fried from stress

Many companies will also insist employees take leave, particularly where the employees are unionised. Basically they just want to be sure there's no grounds for a WRC claim

I don't know the full story, but what may have happened is the OP had holidays booked and was asked to reschedule or cut them short because of some deadlines or something

I've seen staff get offered extra time off as compensation and contractors offered extra money if it happens

Agree that the OP should ask their company payroll directly if possible. It's quite likely the message got lost somewhere between their manager and payroll

If it’s from last year, you’re out of time for a complaint to the WRC. A six month deadline applies except for exceptional circumstances, beyond the threshold of anything you’ve presented here.

that’s what I thought. Use it or lose it is what we are told.

It doesn’t matter what you agreed with “the business”- it’s your employer who pays you - if you didn’t obtain your employers permission to do this work, then why should they pay you?

I don't think anyone understand the OP - and its quite easy.

Tons of companies employ contract staff - from very highly skilled consultants contracted from PWC / EY etc to Nursing home staff.

Very normal for a company to ask if someone on contract could work an extra few days especially if its to cover a holiday or to get a project completed or because someone is suddenly off sick.

Company checks with the person on contract if they are available and if they would like to do it. Company then contacts the agency to confirm and to get it added to the services invoice. Totally normal humdrum situation.

Agency employee would then put in a claim for those extra hours and the payroll clerk adds these. In many cases you are then double paid for the period - holiday and work. In some case you take time off to replace the holidays at a later date. That possibly is covered in terms and conditions.

Solution is to read though your terms and conditions of employment and see what it falls under. Then make a claim to payroll based on that information. It may simply be an extra 2 weeks holiday

Agreed.

That's why I'd suggest the OP calls / emails WRC directly: it may be that the OP has done something very unwise here (agreeing hours directly with the client instead of letting the agency do it).

This sort of situation is why agencies have "no discussing hours" rules: the worker can agree to something which is so illegal that the employer just cannot pay them for it.