Ms Rhona Murphy:

Yes, I echo what my colleague has said. In terms of the issue we are trying to fix here, Deputy O'Dea said that he is eager to preserve true self-employment and not to undermine it in any way, which is good to hear. I accept the Deputy's integrity and bona fides in that regard but the problem is that the definition of "employee" is critical. The issue is how the common law tests that we have are applied. They are necessarily nuanced and have developed over time to capture the variety of arrangements that exist. Those arrangements are very much sought after and wanted by the individual self-employed people to whom they apply. That is why we have a concern about how any legislation would develop. When I heard Senator Nash referring to the Competition (Amendment) Act 2017, I was very concerned because he suggested that it consolidated the existing Revenue code into a statutory definition but it did not do so. It summarised, in a very brief form, what the code says and would likely capture a great many people out there who would not consider themselves by any means to be falsely self-employed or an employee. The other issue it raises is the question of the dependent contractor which is in the same section of definitions. In that particular section, the legislation states that a dependent contractor is somebody who has two or fewer clients and who works for another person, whether or not that person is an employer of other people. That raises a very scary prospect for individuals who might be seeking work to be done only to find that the person that he or she believes is an independent contractor engaged to do the work has no other clients. Suddenly, the question arises as to his or her rights. Right now, under the Competition (Amendment) Act, he or she has imited and contained rights for competition law purposes but if we are going to look to sections like that for definitions in any new legislation, that would be a worrying prospect for a lot of self-employed people as well as for business generally.