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

The facts are that there are direct quotations from senior officials, including the head of Revenue and Mr. McKeon’s predecessor in the Department of Social Protection, that there was a deal in operation and that, for the 20-year period, many workers in that sector may have been misclassified, or to use the term “bogus self-employment”, may have been employed as bogus employees. The concern is that this practice would then be taken up in other sectors, such as construction. I do not want that to take up this morning. The point here is that it is clear from the documentation we have seen in the past year that there was a deal in operation and that it did operate. It was scaled down in more recent years to the point where it is nearly non-existent now but, for a 20-year period, it did operate in a way that meant there would have been workers misclassified under that deal. We know from the courier sector that not everybody wanted to be categorised as self-employed. Some people who were doing it did not even know they were self-employed.

There are two problems. One is the potential loss to the State of the revenue that needs to go into the Social Insurance Fund. The second is the loss to the workers, particularly for pension entitlements and other entitlements. That is the point. I do not want to labour it today.