Gerald Nash (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I have several questions arising from the contribution from Deputy O'Dea. Unfortunately, I will not be able to remain for the duration of the meeting and I apologise to our guests. Both the CIF and IBEC representatives expressed their satisfaction with how the current regime operates. I could not possibly agree with that and I think they know why. I am long on the public record as expressing my concerns about the operation of the code of practice that was introduced in 2007 and the various other means by which individuals have their employment status defined and determined.

Deputy O'Dea accepts our legislation should have passed in the Seanad last night but did not for want of support from Fianna Fáil Senators, but that is another day's work. I want to put on record that we on this side of the House are all united in our efforts to have something done about this egregious situation. We can argue all day about percentages and so on, but it is a very real issue in our society and our economy. The Minister acknowledges this in that she went so far as to put on the record of the Seanad last night that she intends to introduce legislation to deal with this phenomenon. One of the things she wishes to do is to put the 2007 code of practice on a statutory footing, so in essence she wants to put that into primary law. That was also one of the ambitions of the legislation that I brought forward to ensure the inclusion in primary law of the tests for false self-employment, with which the witnesses and the Government are familiar because those tests were first introduced into Irish primary legislation in the context of what was then the Competition (Amendment) Bill in 2016 and into 2017, which has since been enacted. Those provisions are placed in competition law for the purposes of providing exemption from competition law for certain categories of workers who should have the opportunity to be represented by a trade union for the purpose of collective bargaining. Our ambition was to take those provisions, insert them into primary law and apply those definitions in terms of tests for false self-employment to the broader population of workers.

The Minister is conscious that there is a problem to the point where she is preparing to legislate, and I would appreciate the views of IBEC and CIF on that approach. They seem to be satisfied there are sufficient regulations and a sufficiently robust legal framework in place to enable somebody to have their employment status determined with clarity. We do not believe this is the case. They also refer to the fact there are protections in place for an individual who is taking a case to the scope section of the Department or indeed to the WRC on separate matters, but the reality is that, for those individuals, even though some would say there is a presumption they are employees, that is not always the case. Human nature being what it is and given the precarious nature of the situation many of these workers find themselves in, they are inclined not to take cases because they fear that once they put their head above the parapet, it is going to be chopped off and they will be effectively blacklisted in the industry in which they work.

I know that a form of blacklisting is going on in the construction sector. That is as clear as the nose on our collective faces. I have recently learned that there is a form of unofficial blacklisting going on in parts of the pharmaceutical sector and in the information technology sector, sectors in which people are engaged in these kinds of practices. This needs to be fixed. There is a difference of opinion as to the extent and nature of the problem and how it should be dealt with. There would not be three separate Bills before the Oireachtas, and another one coming from the Government, if the political system did not believe this was a problem.

In the legislation I produced I was at pains to protect genuine self-employment and entrepreneurship, but looking at the numbers of self-employed individuals with no employees, particularly in the construction sector, it is clear that they are not all entrepreneurs. I am aware of labourers - not skilled individuals but labourers - on construction sites who have been forced to register as self-employed or who have been unaware that they were so registered because the contractor did the registration for them. When such people lose their positions they are not entitled to redundancy and have no sick pay or holiday entitlements. They are left with nothing. They only become aware that they were self-employed when they go looking for unemployment support. It is an absolutely outrageous state of affairs and a sad reflection on our society. We all want to protect genuine self-employment.

I value the regulated market economy that we have. There is no doubt about that. I value the contribution that decent, genuine, productive businesses and entrepreneurs make to this economy. We would not have had the increase in employment we have had in recent years if we did not have the people who were prepared to take those risks. This increase is also thanks to the work of IBEC and others in formulating Government policy. This is issue will not go away and the Minister intends legislating for it. I would appreciate the witnesses' views on what the Minister is doing. They may only be aware of her intentions from media reports. Has either organisation been consulted by the Minister about the legislation she intends to produce? She stated in the Seanad last night that she intends to produce this legislation within months.