Mr. Martin McMahon:

Yes. I will start with the legislation. Members like to put legislation in place, but there is no point in oodles of legislation when the roadblock is the Social Welfare Appeals Office and the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection. One is simply piling more legislation onto an already broken system, and it does not make any difference because the Social Welfare Appeals Office does not use precedents. It makes up its own precedents and the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection accepts those precedents. No matter what the Oireachtas does, it simply cannot impact on that.

How widespread is it? I am talking about what is known as schedule D workers, which includes couriers, construction companies and delivery companies. They are not called schedule D workers because they are highly paid workers. They are called schedule D workers because they are less than employed.

The scale of the problem is massive. Deputy Paul Murphy spoke to the chairperson of the Revenue Commissioners at a finance committee earlier this year, and the chairperson of the finance committee said that there are public services companies, PSCs, being used in all sectors, and it is particularly bad in the IT sector. Anecdotally more than 50% of people working in the IT sector are on personal service contracts or else they are working for payroll companies. They are all avoidance schemes. It can all be dismissed as a tax evasion smokescreen. Revenue is quite happy to let this persist. It wants to choose who is or is not self-employed, not based upon legalities, but based upon the employment situation in one's country. If one wants more builders working in construction, simply remove the requirements to pay PRSI or treat them as employees, and one will get work started again. It is all precarious and it is all unlawful.

What can be done about it exists within the legislation. Social welfare legislation says that if a case is too complicated or if the issue is too complicated, then it should be referred to the Circuit Court. The Social Welfare Appeals Office has shown itself to be incompetent as has the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection. Therefore, the only route left available is to refer all these cases to the Circuit Court and to let it decide and not civil servants appointed by the Minister, who are responsible to the Minister and who can be hired and fired by the Minister, depending on what decisions they make. That is not right.

One ends up with a situation where workers, such as couriers and construction workers, are default self-employed. The employer designates employment status. We are the only country in the European Union that allows that. It is impossible for the worker to overturn a default self-employment classification, because one of the precedents that is accepted by the Social Welfare Appeals Office is that companies do not have to give reasons for appeal to have an appeal heard. The Scope Section makes a decision, which is a legally binding one. The company then appeals to the Social Welfare Appeals Office. The Social Welfare Appeals Office does not look for reasons for appeal; it simply grants a hearing. Since these hearings are de novo, as if the first time, it is a new trial, where everything that happened in Scope is out the door. Therefore, Scope is a complete dead end and it is designed to fail. I hope that answers Deputy Brady's question.