Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I very much welcome this amendment. I had the privilege of speaking on this on Second Stage when I touched on the fact that I am married to someone who worked in the hotel and hospitality industry and who was involved in the hotels, restaurants and catering branch of what was originally the Irish Transport and General Workers Union, ITGWU, which became SIPTU. In that context, he avoided particular establishments around Dublin because their owners would dip into tips and use them for payment of wages. How scandalous was that? In my early experiences of dating him, he would not go into places but then gave me the history of the events in 1951 to which Senator Gavan has alluded, when an employee of a hotel was disciplined for eating in rather shameful circumstances. Due to his low rate of pay, he ate from the discarded food of the hotel for which he was disciplined. A strike arose from that, which resulted in a service charge being implemented. That is the history of how the trade union movement was prepared to stand up for those workers and, consequently, a service charge came into being.

I spoke about that on Second Stage and supported the contention regarding service charges that was made to the Tánaiste in that debate. I continued my advocacy afterwards to the Tánaiste and I was advised that I needed some sort of evidence of the history. Thankfully, a colleague of my husband, Norman Croke, who was a great trade union official, supplied me with his historical report of the hotels, restaurants, and catering branch's 75th anniversary, which tracked all of these changes and referred to the developments, security and standing of the service charge. I am very pleased that this amendment is in place. It is very necessary and right. As it honours a custom and practice that has been in place for well over half a century, it is important that this amendment was brought in. I am very grateful to the Tánaiste for taking on board everything that was said to him by all parties, including the trade unions that met him. It is a very important feature. On the departure of those in the hospitality industry post Covid and the difficulty in getting workers, a JLC is possibly a solution to that. I also think that is very good in that regard.

I pay tribute to Norman Croke and to my husband, Dave Kearney, who never would have let me live it down had I not spoken up for service charges, and all of those who fought for services charges to be in place. It is important that this is absolutely red-circled for the workers for which it is intended and for those of us who are the patrons of establishments and believed all along that service charges were going to staff. Now we know that there are. A couple of cases before the Workplace Relations Commission and we will make sure that everyone comes into line.