Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Yes. I am glad to hear the Minister acknowledge that there is some problem. By the way, I have raised specifics. I cannot spend my days and weeks wandering around building sites conducting spot checks, so I am dependent on calls from construction workers. I have raised specific cases in the Dáil when I have been tipped off by construction workers about particular sites. For example, I raised a case in the Dáil eight or nine months ago and there was a raid three or four weeks ago. That was the delay between my naming a specific firm and site and a raid on that site. From the report that I received from construction workers, Revenue found that a large number of people had been mis-categorised when it finally bothered to raid the site. That was just one raid, and the problem is that there are not enough raids to identify a problem that is rampant. Anyone working in construction will say so. It is a cliché to say that the dogs on the street know, but there is wholesale abuse of the category of self-employment. It is being dictated by contractors because they have the whip hand. People approach contractors looking for jobs and believe that they have got them, only to discover that they are instead being categorised in this way and that, if they kick up a fuss, they will be out the door. This is how it works. Everyone knows it.

Consider the number of people who are supposedly self-employed. It goes without saying that general labourers - bricklayers or particular trades people, for example - will comprise a larger portion of the workforce than managers or bosses, be the latter main contractors or subcontractors. One would expect that the portion of people who are self-employed would comprise approximately one quarter of the construction workforce. It is not a quarter, though. Rather, it is approximately a half. This suggests that major abuse is happening. Any reasonable person looking at the situation would agree that that is what is happening.

A serious investigation is required. I am not the only one raising this problem, as the Minister well knows. ICTU has carried out reports on it and trade unions with significant numbers of members working in construction agree that it is happening.

I will go slightly off point, but the Minister has raised another matter. It is true that there is a great deal of Lego-type construction. It is not doing much for the quality of construction in Dublin, aesthetic or otherwise. It is the cheapest way to bang stuff together and is too widespread. Some of that is precisely because developers do not want to have to deal with troublesome workers like bricklayers, carpenters, stonemasons or so on, who do quality work and build quality buildings, because they demand things like the right to pay tax. They cannot have that, so get rid of them and have as much of the Lego-type stuff that they can bang together as quickly as possible. Its quality is poor.

This is something we have already learned to our cost with some of the construction practices in recent times. More to the point, it is something people who have to live in certain places have learned to their cost. I suspect we will find much more of it in the future. Apart from anything else, skilled tradespeople and experienced construction workers are also the best police for the purposes of quality control, which has been significantly hit over recent years.

It is patently obvious that there is enough evidence in the form of allegations, and from groups kicking up about it and saying there is a problem, to justify a serious investigation. I can commit to bring to the attention of the Minister, Revenue and the public any tip-offs I get, as I and others have done in the past. If a serious allegation of widespread abuse of the tax system or of employment rights is made, however, it is up to the State to look into it and to find out if there is a systemic problem, which I absolutely believe to be the case.