Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity)
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23. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if he will introduce legislation to regulate and protect the rights of workers to receive tips and gratuities; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53175/21]

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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On 27th October last, Government approved the drafting of a Bill that will prohibit the use of tips and gratuities to ‘make up’ contractual rates of pay and to require employers to clearly display their policy on how tips, gratuities and service charges are distributed. This will ensure that tips and gratuities are additional to a worker’s wage and are not subsumed by employers into the wage.

The aim of the Payment of Wages (Amendment) (Tips and Gratuities) Bill is to:

- Provide clarity on the meaning of tips, gratuities and service charges;

- Place tips and gratuities, but not service charges, outside the scope of a person’s contractual wages;

- Oblige employers to display prominently their policy on the distribution of both cash and card tips;

- Oblige employers to distribute fairly, equitably and in a transparent manner, tips that are received in electronic form i.e. through debit or credit cards or smart phones.

A key element of the Bill will provide a legal entitlement for workers to receive tips and gratuities paid in electronic form (i.e., by debit or credit card) with a provision that these tips and gratuities should be paid out to workers in a fair, transparent and equitable manner. A fair and equitable distribution will be context specific and is likely to take into account matters such as staff hours, busy and quiet periods, a worker’s role in service delivery, customs and practice etc.