Ms Rhona Murphy:

On the point raised by Deputy Collins regarding how people are hired, the various reports referred to today indicate that the level of employment is rising. It is not the case that on leaving school or other education, a person walks into an employer's office and is offered an independent contract. In fact, such practices are very much in the minority. We know that from those reports. For the avoidance of doubt, we are not saying that false self-employment does not exist. Rather, we are saying that based on the independent studies we have, the issue is not as large as it is being presented to be, and that there are remedies there of which people may avail. Apart from Deputy Collins' example of the CIÉ worker who went to the scope section and got the correct outcome, I am not aware of examples of widespread bogus self-employment. The system is working when it is invoked. When inspections are made, money is recovered and people's employment status changed.

The IBEC position is that we have a framework in place. We may need more work on inspection and enforcement but, beyond that, tinkering with or making wholesale changes to the nature of a contract of employment could have many unintended consequences for businesses as well as for people who left employment to set up a business and who find themselves unwittingly captured by some of the legislation that might come out of that process.