The vast majority of retail chains have agreed to give employees the day off on Millennium Eve, the trade union Mandate said yesterday.
Mr John Douglas, Mandate's industrial officer, said the Government had decreed that New Year's Eve should be a special public holiday and his members in the bar and other retail industries should enjoy it as much as anybody else.
Mandate said the retail groups which will close over the New Year's holiday period include Arnotts, Boots, Debenhams, Dunnes Stores, Marks and Spencer and Burtons.