John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

They are on the record as saying a number of these test cases took place in 1993 and 1994 but Mr. McMahon says it goes back even further. He might elaborate on that in reply.

The evidence given to the committee previously by organisations such as ICTU, which Mr. McMahon mentioned was party to some of the discussions at the time, is that in the construction sector alone, there has been an annual loss of €240 million in tax and PRSI. Mr. McMahon hones in mainly on couriers. How extensive is it across all the sectors? There is conflicting evidence. Mr. McMahon mentioned it was approximately 20% in the construction sector and it has been stated in evidence here previously that the estimated rate of bogus self-employment in the sector is approximately 30% and approximately 15% in the wider economy. How extensive an issue is this?

With regard to the test cases, the Secretary General said a number of representative test cases were selected in 1993 and 1994. What are the details on those cases? What sectors did they relate to? Did they relate just to couriers or to other areas as well? It is alarming that the Minister in her article in The Irish Timeson 25 March 2019 stated that the Department has been operating unlawfully for many years. She said she was looking at amending legislation to permit deciding officers to make determinations on the employment status of groups or classes of workers. That is an acknowledgement that they have been operating unlawfully. Mr. McMahon might elaborate on that as I am not fully familiar with that article in The Irish Times.

He has shown that what the State has done is unlawful, including acting with certain business interests to put others at a disadvantage, leading to the loss to the State of massive amounts in tax and PRSI.

How do we go about solving this? The Minister has come forward with guidelines and with different things. Legislation has been brought forward and my party and other parties have done that. Does Mr. McMahon think legislation is needed, or what is needed?

I have one final question. Mr. McMahon talked about construction workers and about default self-employment. He said that this is particularly the case in construction where construction companies which enjoy the cover of this precedent of default self-employment worker classification. Could Mr. McMahon elaborate on that as well?