Ray Butler (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I agree with the Minister that the JobsPlus scheme has been excellent. Many business people and companies are accessing JobsPlus through my office, naturally enough being the local Deputy and having a direct line. It has been very successful.

I thank Deputy O'Dea for bringing up the issue of the self-employed. The Mangan report proposed that instead of having the S class stamp, we bring in a new stamp at 5.5%. ISME has come back with a report to us. Everybody is in favour of bringing in a new stamp. The elephant in the room is whether it would be voluntary or mandatory. We have spoken to the Minister for Finance and the Minister has spoken to people in her Department. We could introduce it in stages. Currently, a self-employed person pays 4%. We could introduce it for the first couple of years at 4.25%. I would like the findings of the Mangan report implemented because we are going down the road of talking about pensions for self-employed people. This is a huge area where we do not have social security, or social cover, for the self-employed. This would bring in disability and sick pay for the first time for self-employed people.

Now is the time to do this. We are at a low base. There are 340,000 self-employed people in this country. The figure is rising and will continue to rise, given the economic forecasts projected for the next couple of years. We propose that we look at this. The only way it will work is if it is mandatory rather than voluntary.

The Minister has done great work in this area and she has lowered the threshold levels. She has been excellent and has really helped self-employed people over the past couple of years but we need to push on with the findings of the Mangan report and put this stamp in place now. We do not want to go back to the past and to what happened with self-employed people and the horrific stories and the horrific crash self-employed people in this country experienced.

Let us put this new stamp in place. There is no reason not to do so as everybody wants it. We just need somebody to step up to the plate and to say this is the way it will be. Some 4.25% for the first couple of years would only be a 0.25% rise, which is very small. We know retail businesses and other businesses are starting to come right. This is only 0.25%, so why give it in revenue or income tax when one can put a little bit aside to ensure one's family has security at the end of the day and that there will be money coming into one's house? Will the Minister push this with the other Ministers in Cabinet?