Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy O'Dea for raising this point. I share his concerns. Correctly classifying work as either employment or self-employment impacts on the benefits people receive and also on their entitlements under legislation relating to employment rights. As the Deputy pointed out, there is also a loss to the Exchequer. I get all of that. The committee will be aware that I launched a campaign recently in respect of allowing people to have their classification changed if they are in any doubt as to whether they are employed or self-employed. The take-up rate and the number of people who have contacted us are a lot greater than I would have expected. We will go through all of those cases in the same format that we have done for other people before.

The committee has the current guidelines - it is only a code of practice - and I appreciate that they are long and varied. The reason for their being long and varied is because Mr. Justice Ronan Keane, in the Supreme Court case of Henry Denny and Sons (Ireland) Ltd. v. the Minister for Social Welfare, said that each case has to be confirmed and determined in light of the particular facts of that person. Given that more than 1 million people in this country have declared themselves to be self-employed, there are dissimilarities across the board. That is why the code of practice has to be as wide and varied as it is. I agree that it needs to be updated. However, the reason I will be opposing this particular amendment is that a code of practice is something that people commit to adhering to. It is also there to be used in determining the outcome of cases where there is disagreement between people. To make it a criminal offence to fail to adhere to a code of practice would be a step too far for me.

The committee will be aware that I am working on these issues. It is not as simple as firming up exactly what self-employed versus employed means. This is because, within the self-employed context, we could have 50 people ticking all of the boxes but not being self-employed, either in my view or in those of the Deputies. For me, the driver has to be that a person needs to want to be self-employed and, as Deputy Bríd Smith said, actually making money for himself or herself and not for somebody else. We need to determine that. There are, however, many people who want to be self-employed for the simple reason that they can make money for themselves.

That is still incurring a loss to the Exchequer. We need, perhaps, to look at a third category or some other way of determining those people who either work for only one dedicated contractor or who do 70% or 80% of their work with such a contractor and imposing a charge on them to ensure that the Exchequer does not lose out. There is also a need for a classification in order that these people can benefit from the employment rights that every other person with employee status enjoys. It is only on that basis that I am not accepting this amendment. Perhaps we might do it by means of a statutory instrument. We can have a look at the code of practice, strengthen it and make it simpler and less varied than is currently the case. To make it a criminal offence for people not to adhere to a code of practice is not something to which I can sign up, particularly in view of the fact that I am exploring other options to address the challenge of the number of people who, potentially, are declaring as self-employed but who are not really self-employed.