Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is not a simple issue and it has been going on for years. Certain individuals will feel they will benefit from designation as self-employed, even though it will be bogus self-employment. They would not look at the impact of having no sick leave or the protection given by PRSI, and some employers would be of the same view. The Government has acknowledged that there is an issue. The Minister has acknowledged it and, when Minister, Deputy Joan Burton initiated a consultation process in January this year. When discussing a similar amendment put forward by Deputy Boyd Barrett, we were told to wait for the consultation process, which was ongoing.

Four options were outlined in chapter 8 of the report and ICTU put forward sensible proposals that the onus should be on the contractor and individual to prove their contracts were contracts for services. One of the proposals was that everybody would be treated as a PAYE worker until they could prove otherwise. Another proposal was that contractors should be levied a sum equivalent to the PRSI liability, to be repayable only on satisfactory approval of employment status by Revenue. At the moment it is up to Revenue. The industry is transient and people are working on one site today while they may be working on another site as a contractor on another day. It is very hard to pin all of this down, and putting the onus on Revenue to investigate means we will be chasing our tails a lot of the time. It would require intensive input from Revenue personnel, but the PRSI loss from every bogus self-employed worker is €2,886 and it has to be asked if chasing that type of money is worth the effort. It is also about workers' rights and we need to rebalance the situation.

It would be wrong to suggest that every self-employed person working on a construction site is bogus, as they are not. There is no doubt, however, that this is the way the system works in Ireland. Friends of mine thinking of coming back from London and Glasgow will not do so at the minute because prices are not right. When they do come back, however, they know they will be deemed self-employed because that is the only way they will get the price from the contractor. They will sacrifice their security and sick leave for the extra cash in their pockets in the short term. I am not talking about my friends but generally. We need to tip the scales in order that they are not forced into those positions.