Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I return to inspections and prosecutions. The Department has told us that it undertakes targeted and individual inspections, but we do not know what those inspections entail. For example, could the Department walk onto a building site tomorrow, say the national children's hospital, and go straight to the contractor and demand to see the books, who is paying what and who is employed where? If the Department did that with a deal of scrutiny, it would result in a much tighter report than the one it gave the committee. The report concludes that the prevalence of self-employment is diminishing and I just do not believe that. Just in my own life, I know so many people who are caught in bogus self-employment to make a living in the food, airline or construction industries and elsewhere. I do not believe that the Department cannot do better than this report, to collect the data and provide us with something meaningful. Therefore, I question the level of inspection and what it entails because if it is anything like this report, it is pretty poor.

Huge sums go out on State contracts for schools, hospitals and other buildings and a huge amount of bogus self-employment takes place on those sites. Does the State or can the Department ensure that a series of guarantees and penalties is put into those contracts such that the contractor will not employ on bogus self-employment terms? If the Department is not doing so already, will it please look at doing so as it would be a deterrent and would lead to proper prosecutions if such guarantees were broken?

Has the Department of Social Protection ever prosecuted on the basis of bogus self-employment? What I heard, and it was said quite quickly, was that it was not done through the Department but through Revenue. Have these prosecutions been taken and, if so, how many times has it been done and who has been prosecuted?