Last update:07 November 2024, 11:22 IST

Rian Keogh was paid €355 (Rs 32,000) in five cent coins by Alfie’s Restaurant in Dublin.

Keogh said he was awaiting final payment.

In 2021, a Dublin restaurant that paid one of its employees with a bucket of five cent coins was in breach of 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, weeks after the student finished working for the establishment.

Keogh said he was waiting for final payment before Alfie’s owner Niall McMahon told him it was ready to be cashed at the South William Street premises.

When he arrived to collect the money, the third-year UCD student said he was surprised to find the money was paid out entirely in five cent coins in a large bucket, worth around 7,100 coins.

“I just started laughing, that’s all I could think to do. I made a little video and sent it to my friends and went around the corner to Bar Rua. “I had a pint and then I went home,” Keogh told The Journal.

Rian and his curious cargo attracted a number 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 station to his home took about half an hour as he struggled with nearly 30kg of coins.

He did not count the coins but weighed them, finding that the total weight suggested that the sum had been 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 scale below which would include the bucket.

Employment law specialist Richard Grogan said Rian was under no obligation to accept payment in this form because 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 does not state that anyone is required to accept more than 50 denominated currencies in a single transaction. So the bucket of coins did not comply with the act.

“You can’t pay like that. So, you cannot pay off the debt in this way. The employee, if he wanted to, could have said “I have not been paid, I am not taking this”. “They could have gone to the WRC (Workplace Relations Commission) and the employer would have said ‘here’s the coin bucket’ and the WRC would have said ‘they don’t cover it,'” Grogan explained.