Dublin Restaurant Pays Employee Salary In Coins, Faces Legal Action – News18
Last Updated:
Rian Keogh was paid €355 (Rs 32,000) in five-cent coins by Alfie’s Restaurant in Dublin.
Keogh said he was waiting for his final pay.
Back in 2021, a Dublin restaurant that paid one of its employees with a bucket of five-cent coins did not comply with payment and legal tender legislation, an employment law specialist has said.
Rian Keogh was paid €355 (Rs 32,000) in five-cent coins by Alfie’s Restaurant in Dublin city centre, several weeks after the student finished working for the establishment.
Keogh said he was waiting for his final pay before Alfie’s owner Niall McMahon told him it was ready to be collected at the premises on South William Street.
https://x.com/rianjkeogh/status/1437799788255252488?s=46
When he arrived to get the money, the third-year UCD student said he was taken aback to find that the money was being paid entirely in five-cent coins in a large bucket, amounting to around 7,100 coins.
“I just started laughing, that’s all I could think to do. I took a little video and sent it to my friends and went around the corner to Bar Rua. “I had a pint and then went home,” Keogh told The Journal.
Rian and his curious cargo drew a flurry of questions from curious punters in the pub. After paying for his drink – with a card – the student caught the Luas home. The 15-minute walk from the Luas stop to his house took around half an hour as he struggled with nearly 30 kilos of coinage.
He did not count the coins, but weighed them, finding that the total weight suggests the amount was paid in full. Each 5c coin weighs 3.92g, and Rian was owed 7,100 of them, which is 27.8kg, close to the total weight seen on the scales below which would also include the bucket.
Employment law specialist Richard Grogan said Rian was not obliged to accept payment in that form as Alfie had failed to comply with the relevant legislation, which is section 10 of the Economic and Monetary Union Act, 1998. Grogan noted that the legislation states that no one is obliged to accept more than 50 coins denominated in any single transaction. So, the bucket of coins did not comply with the act.
“You cannot pay that way. So, you can’t discharge the debt in that fashion. The employee, if they wanted to, could have said ‘I haven’t been paid my wages, I’m not taking that’. “They could have walked down to the WRC [Workplace Relations Commission] and the employer would have said ‘here’s the bucket of coins’ and the WRC would have said that ‘doesn’t cover it’,” Grogan explained.
Discover more from Divya Bharat 🇮🇳
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.