Tipping: we need a probe

You know, if we're serious about introducing openness and transparency into every area of Irish life, it's time we had an inquiry into the whole area of tipping in restaurants.

Yes I know I complained last year about the spread of tipping in general. That was after a traumatic experience at a function in a Dublin hotel when there was an attendant in the gents toilet dispensing personalised hand towels over a plate of tips containing nothing but coins.

What made the episode worse was that the attendant appeared - in breach of the unwritten Geneva Convention governing gents toilet etiquette - to be making eye contact with customers: I can't be certain of this, of course, because I damn-well wasn't looking at him.

But that was an extreme example of the tipping trend, the chief culprits in which were, and remain, restaurants. These days, even self-service restaurants - where, by definition, any performance-related gratuities should go to the customer - tend to have collection bowls next to the cash register. Accompanied, in case you miss the point, by signs ranging from the coquettish ("Be Nice!") to the more forceful ("Go on, you tight b*****d!").

Traditionally, tipping was confined to the better dining establishments, where one might linger over a meal for days, or at any rate long enough to develop a meaningful relationship with staff. This is still the situation in which tips are most readily and substantially given. And yet, as a letter writer to the Economist explained recently, tipping restaurant staff is basically a form of low-level corruption, designed to subvert a system in which the rules of supply, demand, waiting time and location of table vis-a-vis the door to the toilets should be the same for all.

The standard justification for tipping is that it rewards good service. But if we accept the principle that quality of service is commensurate with the amount of our discretionary addition to the publicised price of a product or service, then we as a society are on a slippery slope of moral relativism which, among other things, can lead to us writing sentences that are way too long already. And in such a society, how can we be sure that the award of Government contracts is aboveboard?

We are not Scandanavians, of course, and we are culturally disposed to a certain amount of commercial wheel-greasing to make our lives easier. This can be harmless enough. In the neighbourhood where I grew up, for example, any time you lost something, you went to a guy called "Saint Anthony". He'd "find" it for you "miraculously" (you didn't ask) in return for three Hail Marys, although a financial donation always increased his chances.

And truth to tell, tipping is about as scientific a method of influencing the service you get in many restaurants. Most staff do an adequate job without bribery. But without an open, transparent system, there is always the suspicion that money makes a difference. Maybe you can get inside information from a well-tipped waiter ("Psst! The chef is drinking again - don't touch the soup!"), you think. Maybe it might mean bigger portions.

Then there are those signs that say: "Ask about our specials". You generally find that a waiter will tell you about the specials whether or not you're a big tipper. But I've often wondered whether, if you asked a second time, slipping a tenner in his pocket, would you get a different answer? Would he perhaps smile discreetly and add, under his breath: "Did I forget to mention the lobster?".

I think what's coming through here is that I don't mind so much that tipping restaurant staff is a form of corruption. I'm just annoyed that I can't get the hang of it, personally.

If you have children, chances are you don't eat out much. When you do, you're rarely in the same restaurant twice a year - and such is the rate of change in Dublin these days, the waiter or waitress you tipped lavishly last time will probably have moved on. There's a good chance the restaurant will have closed. In some cases the street may have disappeared. And even if the staff are all still there, they won't remember you.

This is so much more the case with coffee shops and self-service restaurants. The turnover of staff in these places is huge, between people going back to college, moving on to better jobs, getting deported by the Minister for Justice, and so on; there's no time to build up relationships. Worse still, despite the in-your-face demands for tips, many staff have the good taste not to look when you're dropping money in the bowl.

That can be annoying in itself. But what really galls me - and it's always happening - is when you're throwing down a calculatedly noisy handful of coins, and at that precise moment, one of the staff drops cutlery into the sink or lets a tray full of glasses fall, so that the sound of your generosity is drowned out. Nobody saw or heard it. It's like you've made an anonymous donation to Concern: no-one knows, except you and, maybe, God. And you don't even have the satisfaction of having helped a good cause.

Contrast all this with the French system, where the prices on the menu have a built-in 15 per cent service charge and the customer is advised accordingly. Being a waiter is a serious, respectable profession in France and the results are clear to see: as anyone has been to Paris will know, all customers are treated with equal contempt. Why can't we have this simple system here?

Frank McNally can be contacted at fmcnally@irish-times