Mr. Niall Cody:

I am sorry but that is a misrepresentation of the arrangements that were put in place in 1997. In 1997, we were looking at a challenging area and at a reasonable level of casual working non-compliance. The process the office was trying to address was to ensure the sector - the motorcycle and cycle courier services - was brought into the tax net. It was done under a background of social welfare rulings in regard to the status of social insurance rulings around the fact individual couriers had been classified as self-employed for social insurance purposes. We also had situations in the late 1980s where we had raised assessments on courier companies and where, subsequently, the courier companies could produce decisions that the couriers were self-employed for social insurance purposes. As a result, we had to waive and remove our assessment in regard to PRSI because we were the collection agent rather than the determining agent.

It was also against a backdrop of the treatment of owner-drivers and the trends across the industry. This is not a new development and if we look-----