Ms Patricia Murphy:

While we are not prosecuting at present, we did have a small number of prosecutions of employers. There were two in 2016 and eight in 2015, but they were related to PRSI. I cannot state specifically whether there were cases involving bogus self-employment, but it might have been part of them. However, I do not have the details of each individual case.

On a spouse's class S PRSI contributions, no decision by the scope section is required. I am not aware that we have an awareness campaign, but general information is available on our website to anybody who has a query about it.

I am conscious that I did not address the international position. Countries are grappling with this issue and we are aware of a number that have legislation in place, including the United Kingdom, with the ultimate end-user paying the contributions. This is the recommendation made in the intermediary's report. The United Kingdom has applied a provision to the private sector. Previously it had been confined to the public sector. We have our own legislation that we could use more fully, on which the Department is quite clear. We can be very focused in ensuring customers are paid, but we are increasing our focus on employers all the time. I emphasise that it is a work in progress in building our own operations, as well as joint operations in this area. We have the recommendation made in the intermediary's report. Any legislation introduced will always requires enforcement. We must have boots on the ground with employers interviewing the workers involved. If workers are not coming forward, we must be in there, no matter what legislation is in place. We have reviewed the legislation.

It is quite broad but we believe at the moment that we have the powers we need. If we do not have them we will introduce them.

I was asked to comment on the Private Members' Bills. It is a question of balance, we do not want to inhibit people getting work. We want to ensure they pay the correct PRSI and have the full employment rights they are entitled to. While we are considering the code of practice we are looking to see whether we should put it on some type of statutory basis. It would be a way of possibly requiring employers to read the code before somebody starts work or enters into a contract. It has to be done in such a way that, for example, it does not deal unfairly with people who are genuinely self-employed. There are many genuinely self-employed people and we do not want them to be labelled as falsely self-employed.