Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will go back to the issue of misclassification of workers and the test case issue and whether there was a test case or not. Correspondence from the Secretary General of the Department in 2000 shows that there was a test case. In that correspondence, the Secretary General of the Department of Social Welfare, as it was then called in 2000, said that in order to resolve the matter, a number of representative test cases were selected in 1993 and 1994 for detailed investigation and that the process resulted in a decision by an appeals officer of the social welfare appeals office on 12 June 1996, who decided that a courier was self-employed. He went on to outline three grounds. The chairperson of the Revenue Commissioners in August of the same year stated, “I enclose copies of our letters of 7 March 1997 and 3 April 1997 to Messers K. Ryan and company". They represented courier firms at the discussions in the Gresham Hotel. The letters outlined the agreement reached for tax purposes. They state that for the purpose of insurability under social welfare law a motorcycle courier was found to be self-employed by the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs tribunal some years ago and that the decision was not challenged further through the High Court on a point of law and consequently would stand for social insurance purposes.

A number of factors were set out. The Chief State Solicitor at the time, Mr. Mark Connaughton, said the classification, or certain issues that would identify somebody as being self-employed "cannot of itself justify a conclusion that the claimant [the courier in this case] is in business on his own account".

In 2021, the current code of practice states that “the provision of tools or equipment will not have a significant bearing on reaching a conclusion about which employment status is appropriate”. That is a change. That is the reason I read out the 2021 code of practice. I do not want to hammer home the point or anything, but it is clear in the number of direct quotations and correspondence that we have seen to date, that a deal was done to classify couriers as a group. In the documents even for this meeting today, it is clear that the Department moved away from that practice approximately three or four years ago. If I recall correctly, last year there were only three companies using that. Now there are two companies using that, according to correspondence from the Department. Is it correct that there has been a move away from that?