Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 28 September 2017

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection

Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection Remit and Legislative Agenda: Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection

10:00 am

Photo of Joan CollinsJoan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I concur with many of Deputy Brady's points on discrimination in the Department. Discrimination is one of the main areas that the Department will have to deal with in the future and if there is blatant discrimination then there is a problem.

A Department not having proper standards does not reflect well on other sections of society. One cannot stand over that. The Department has to work to resolve the pensions issue, particularly the gender gap issue. It was probably one of the worst cuts during the austerity years. No one really knew it was happening. It was brought in but it was three years later when people thought they would get the full pension €233 that they found out they were €30 short because of the changes in the bands and credits.

I am not au faitwith how the budget process works in the Department. I have a bit of an idea but do not know the full details. The Minister says she got €19.85 billion in her Department's budget last year. Is she expecting it to be the same this year? Is it cut to the cloth of employment and unemployment figures? Is the Minister not fighting to keep that €19.85 billion on the basis of discrimination in the Department? That is an argument that could be made to the Minister for Finance. We could gain something from dealing with this issue.

I agree with the strong points on young people made by Deputy Brady. We talk about money going into the Department. I also want to raise the issue of RCT, relevant contracts tax, on building sites and self-employment. The Department is losing crucial PRSI payments which could be used to offset some of the areas I have raised. It is a key area of work which has to be addressed. Looking at the numbers, there is little money coming into Revenue or the Departments from RCTs. Why is that? There are plenty of them out there. Why have the moneys not accrued to the Department? There is something wrong there. For example, people are getting paid on the two-year back to back to work scheme. They are on site and get grants but we are not seeing that money come back in again. There are issues with other self-employed workers such as English language teachers in private schools and workers in the film industry who do not get whole-day pay. As a result, moneys are not coming back into Revenue or into the Department of Employment and Social Protection in PRSI. That is one of the biggest areas of work that the Department has to examine. Significant sums of money in stamps and payments are being lost to the taxpayer. The conditions and pay of the workers in these industries is also an issue. It is right across the board with pilots in Ryanair and people in the film industry. We have had a number of people telling us how they cannot get full-time work in the film industry but only as a trainee with short-term employment. This is an issue that must be examined by the Department, as well as by the committee.

Legislation on banded hours must move on to Committee Stage and not be left behind. Deputy Cullinane’s Banded Hour Contracts Bill 2016 is quite advanced and we should work together to get it passed as quickly as possible. In August, the trade union, Mandate, was in the Labour Court about Dunnes Stores and banded hours. It was told to wait until the legislation came through the Houses of the Oireachtas which makes it more urgent.

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