If an employee has been on lay-off for four or more consecutive weeks or for six weeks in any 13 week period, they are entitled to claim for a statutory redundancy payment.

‘Lay-off’ is narrowly defined under article 182(1) of the Employment Rights (Northern Ireland) Order 1996 and means a situation in which:

• the employee is employed under a contract on terms and conditions such that the employee’s remuneration under the contract depends on the employee being provided by the employer with work of the kind which the employee is employed to do; and
• in the week in question, the employee is provided with no work by the employer and therefore gets no pay.

Taking into account the above definition, it would seem that a week spent on paid annual leave would not count as a week of 'lay-off’ because the employee will be getting paid for their time off.