Revellers will get to celebrate New Year's Eve just a tiny bit longer this year.

2016 will be exactly one second longer than expected.

Officials clocks will hit the 23:59:59 as usual but will then read 23:59:60 before rolling into 2017.

This 'leap second' is slipped in periodically by timekeepers to keep our clocks in sync with the rotation of the Earth.

Most people will hopefully be having too much fun to notice but if left uncorrected over time it could cause problems with GPS and computer systems.

The laboratory with responsibility for maintaining the equipment to measure time interval or frequency in Ireland is the National Standards Authority of Ireland's National Metrology Laboratory.