Am I forced to take the holiday entitlement during my notice period or can it be paid out after? Thanks =)

Use it up during your notice period. Then you have a few days to do exactly as you please. I can't see any company willing to pay you for vacation you haven't taken.

You will probably be forced to take the holiday. Paying out is exceptional, and is not legally enforceable. Holiday carried over from previous years might be lost altogether!

Depends what job you have, how senior you are, how nice the powers that be are. My wife got paid out 26 days holiday recently.

They can force to work it you but some do pay out and any rolled over days must be honored from a prev year. No use it or lose it apparently.

If they object to you taking it during the notice period, what are they going to do, sack you?

You will need to calculate how many days you have (to the last day of your employment - HR will do this, but check it yourself), and take them. If the company allows it, which they sometimes do, you can take the cash instead. If they don't let you take the holiday then they have to pay you.

I think you should go and ask your HR/the secretary/manager/boss/in whatever context you're working, directly,
and ask them what their policy is on that, unless you mistrust them entirely, which I hope for you is not the case.

Practically every company I worked for was streched in terms of personnel and succesion planning was virtually non-existent so they needed me very badly during my last weeks and so payed me not to take all my vacations. There is a legally enforcable minimum number of days you have to take though, and that you cannot work on.