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James McDermott: No worker should be short-changed when tips are dished out

New legislation governing tipping will allow an employer to consider employees’ seniority and experience when distributing gratuities, but is this fair?

Legislating for tips will benefit only those workers in industries where tipping actually happens. What about cleaners, care assistants and shelf stackers?

The idea that “the labourer is worthy of his hire” dates back to the Bible, but what that hire properly consists of has perplexed generations of Irish politicians. Even though we have had legislation on the payment of wages for well over three decades now, there was no specific law dealing with tips received by workers.

This meant that a satisfied customer who left such a tip had no guarantee that the intended recipient would ...