Mr. Séamus Dooley:

This is an enormously complicated issue. It has been through the Committee of Public Accounts as well. There was a process under Eversheds Sutherland through which a significant number of people secured employment. There was then an appeal system of two independents who dealt with the issue of retrospective rights. What then happened was that Scope, the investigation unit of the Department of social welfare, came in and looked at a whole other category of workers who fell outside of that investigation. There is now a court case in the superior court involving an individual, which means other people who have appeals to Scope are caught in a logjam. It is extraordinarily unfair. That is going to happen. Those people are left hanging. While it is a small group of people, that does not mean it is fair. No one is going to touch them until the superior court appeal is dealt with. That is the real problem. The vast majority of issues around Scope have been resolved, although I would not say to everyone's satisfaction. This was a situation, as Deputy Ó Snodaigh knows, which should never have happened. What Mr. O’Brien described regarding copyright issues mirrors what happened to people who were forced to sign contracts of bogus self-employment. It is the same issue.