Mr. Martin McMahon:

I do not think that anything accurately captures the extent of it. Revenue has access to all these figures. The Department of Social Protection has access to the amount of PRSI taken by each person, so it could tell what company has taken PRSI at what rate and for how long. There are the indicators. If one wants an indicator of how many people are bogus self-employed, one can just look at that. It is a little indicator. If somebody had been working for two years and his or her 4% of PRSI has amounted to €50 every week, that is a very good indicator that he or she is not self-employed. It is the same person paying him or her for two years what amounts to a weekly wage, regardless of what way it does the matrix or how the company works this, it amounts to a weekly wage. They are the indicators. These bodies can look at all of this information, but they simply do not want to. That is the problem. Nobody has a clear picture, although there are indicators of what the picture is. As the Deputy said, it is up to 25% and as the NTA said, it is up to 50%. We know it is 100% for couriers and that 23% of construction workers are self-employed. It is literally all over the place.