John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank our guests for attending and for their submissions. The committee is working to look at bogus self-employment. It is not just the issue of revenue lost to the State, it is also the various entitlements lost to a potential employee - be it holiday pay, sick pay, etc. - and it will become more important in the future as auto-enrolment in the context of pensions will come into play and whereby employers will have a contribution to make.

I want to make one observation on something Ms Winters said. She was referring to the industry generally and stated that somebody could be abusing the system and gaining an unfair advantage over others in a sector. That is a very important point and it is very well made. I was surprised when Deputy Carey indicated that the industry organisations know that the level of self-employment is higher in certain sectors, whether it is couriers, construction or whatever. While the CSO publishes data, it would probably be worthwhile for the industry bodies themselves to break that data down by company and by sector. For example, how many of the 30,000 are blocklayers, labourers and so forth? The risk would then become more apparent. It would be useful for the industry organisations to look at that.

I again thank our guests for attending. Their opening statements and their answers to the questions have been very helpful and informative.