Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I fully support the Chairman's proposal. We may have given Revenue an avenue out by being prescriptive in terms of requesting that they commission an independent investigation. I am very disappointed, however, that Revenue has said that it does not have the powers to set up such a commission and that there is no legal basis for them to do so. They are not offering a proposal to do anything. As has been rightly said, this has potentially serious long-term implications for workers' social protection entitlements. In the short term, there is also a very different obligation on an employer with employees, as opposed to an employer with people who are defined as being self-employed in the context of day-to-day entitlements for employees such as sick leave, the protections that are in place and even the requirements with regard to the minimum wage.

This is a hugely important issue and it is going to become more acute over the coming period. I therefore agree with the Chairman's proposal that we write back to Revenue asking what precisely it intends to do to carry out an analysis of the level of revenue that has been lost to the State, the number of workers impacted and the financial cost and implications for said workers. It is crucially important that Revenue assess that. This is a decision it made as a result of a social welfare appeal hearing many years ago. It must not be dropped because there are potential knock-on implications for workers in many other sectors.