Mr. Tim Duggan:

If employers behave badly and try to reclassify people, who are currently classified as employees paying PRSI at class A, as paying class S, then obviously other legal issues are at play there. The scope section in the Department of Social Protection would follow up on that wherever complaints are made or where it came to light that such practices were going on. In the event that somebody were found to have done that and to have engaged in bogus self-employment, they would be liable for the PRSI implications of that and NAERSA would have to use its compliance functions to chase down employee contributions that should rightly have been made to My Future Fund. You are into a whole legal piece there.

There are also provisions within the auto-enrolment Act to discourage employers from behaving in a way that would coerce or seek to persuade employees from not engaging in auto-enrolment, either by forcing them to opt out, suspending their participation in the scheme where they have been auto-enrolled, or dissuading them from opting into the scheme, if they wish to do that. If an employer behaves using such practices, sanctions, penalties and prosecutions can be applied under the auto-enrolment Act by NAERSA in such circumstances.