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16th Sep 2021

What can you actually do if someone tries to pay you with a bucket of coins?

Stephen Porzio

Irish law has your back in such a situation.

Yes, you probably never considered the answer to such a question and you might be wondering why we’ve brought it up now if you haven’t been following the news too closely.

Well, it’s because earlier this week, a popular Dublin restaurant called Alfie’s was accused of paying an employee with a bucket of coins – sparking a major reaction online.

A former employee of the South William Street restaurant, Rian Keogh, wrote on Twitter on Tuesday that after requesting his final pay packet for weeks, he finally received it in the form of a tub of change.

“If anyone wants to know what it was like to work in Alfie’s on South William Street just know after chasing my last pay for weeks I finally got it but in a bucket of 5c coins,” Keogh wrote.

Speaking to JOE on Wednesday (15 September), Keogh said that he gave less notice than he should have of his intention to stop working in Alfie’s and ended up “chasing” Alfie’s owner Niall McMahon for his final pay packet.

Eventually, he said he was called in to receive his wages, where he was met with an “embarrassed” manager, who had to give him the coins. Keogh said he was “so blown back” about receiving his wages in this manner.

“I think I went red first and then I started laughing, I was just shocked, I couldn’t believe he actually did it,” he said.

JOE reached out to Alfie’s and Niall McMahon for a statement, with McMahon responding that he would not comment on a private matter.

The post attracted significant attention on social media, garnering thousands of likes and retweets, with many condemning the alleged behaviour from Alfie’s.

However, it also became clear from reactions to the story that some people were unaware of what their rights would be if they were confronted with a similar situation.

As such, JOE did some digging into the Irish Statute Book and discovered that the country’s law is quite clear on the matter.

In 1998, Ireland introduced the Economic and Monetary Union Act into law to replace the legal tender provisions that had been re-enacted in Irish legislation from previous British enactments.

Section 10 of the Act states that most people are not obliged to accept any more than 50 coins in a single transaction.

“No person, other than the Central Bank of Ireland and such persons as may be designated by the Minister by order, shall be obliged to accept more than 50 coins denominated in euro or in cent in any single transaction,” the Act’s section reads.

For more information, people can read the act themselves here.

JOE has also contacted the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) about the matter.

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