Christmas is lingering longer than usual after tens of thousands shunned the traditional mass return to work yesterday.
Offices remained shut, machinery stayed silent and traffic was so light that AA Roadwatch sent home some of its staff rather than have them monitoring empty roads.
"It was a very quiet day," said spokesman Mr Conor Purcell. "We are thinking now it will not happen until after New Year's Day. If people are not going back to work today, they are not going back on Monday either.
"We expected it to be business as usual, but coming to work myself this morning, it looked like 90 per cent of people were still in bed."
The 28th normally marks the reopening of businesses in line with the long-observed tradition of allowing Christmas Day and St Stephen's Day off plus one extra day to allow workers to travel back to the cities from rural areas.
Most Government departments in Dublin opened with a reduced staff but some regional offices were shut and many of the State's 32,000 civil servants stayed at home.
The only major activity in many parts of the country was at the sales and racing meetings.
Irish Rail timetables were also evidence of the prolonged break. Full services will not be back to normal on most lines until January 2nd.
Mr Pat Delaney, director of the Small Firms Association, said the extended shutdown was due to Christmas falling on a Tuesday rather than the country becoming work-shy.
"It causes no real difficulty provided it is planned in advance. "Where it would cause difficulty is if the period were to be extended beyond what has become the traditional week. This year is strange and the Christmas period is 10 days long but that's the exception."
ISME, the Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association, said the prolonged shutdown was manageable so long as it was planned.
"It works both ways," said the association's chief executive, Mr Mark Fielding, still smarting from the impromptu National Day of Mourning on September 13th which he estimated cost £125 million in lost production.
One group unaffected by the extra days' leave this year are the TDs as they are not due back in the Dβil until January 15th.
AA Roadwatch warned that next week's return to normal business would only be a foretaste of the congestion to follow.