Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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The Payment of Wages (Amendment) (Tips and Gratuities) Bill 2022 (No 5 of 2022) was published on 24 January 2022. The Bill completed Seanad 2nd Stage on 1st February last, at which session it was undertook to reconsider the treatment of service charges in the Bill.

The relevant issues and potential implications including legal matters related to any regulation of service charges are currently being examined. When this exercise has been completed the appropriate amendments, if any, will be brought forward in the legislation.

The Bill will provide clarity on the meaning of tips, gratuities, and service charges; place tips and gratuities 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; and oblige employers to distribute fairly and in a transparent manner, tips that are received in electronic form i.e., through debit or credit cards or smart phones.

However, there will be no other regulation of ‘cash tips’ as this is, according to the Workplace Relations Commission, ‘’unenforceable’. Cash tips are not always under the control of the employer.