Decimal Day use pennies or threepenny pieces, to pay them in multiples of 6d (p, the lowest common multiple of the two systems). Bus companies (at that time many state-owned by the National Bus Company) were another exception, going decimal on Sunday 21 February. Decimal Day itself went smoothly. Criticisms included the small size of the new halfpenny coin and the fact that some traders had taken advantage of the transition to raise prices. Some used new pennies as sixpences in vending machines. After 15 February, shops continued to accept payment in old coins, but always issued change in new coins. The
Decimal Day Ireland operated within the Sterling Area, effectively a single monetary area. The Irish pound had come into existence as a separate currency in 1927 with distinct coins and notes, but the terms of the Irish Currency Act obliged the Irish currency commissioners to redeem Irish pounds on a fixed 1:1 basis, and so day-to-day banking operations continued exactly as they had been before the creation of the Irish pound (). This state of affairs continued until 1979 when Irish obligations to the European Monetary System forced them to break the historic link with Sterling. In Ireland, all pre-decimal coins, except