Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Before the Minister comes back on that, the second issue about which a complaint was made is that when deciding whether somebody should be in the RCT1 system, and it is quite technical, as I understand it there are criteria as to whether they fit into the RCT1 category. Many building workers are saying they do not fit into that category but they are being put into it by the principal contractors where certain criteria must be met in this respect such as having an office and probably a certain amount of equipment but one must actually be a subcontractor rather than simply be categorised as a sub-contractor, which many of these building workers say they are not. In effect, they are being employed by the principal contractor but the principal contractor does not want to admit he or she is employing them and pushes them into being categorised as sub-contractors when they are not. That is the contention. How is the Department of Finance dealing with that or has the Minister of State any thoughts on how this problem could be dealt with? The workers are saying that if anybody seriously looked into the individuals who are being categorised as a sub-contractor under the RCT1 system, Revenue would very quickly discover that those people do not fit the criteria of being sub-contractors. It is in that grey area that a good deal of abuse is happening. The allegation is that the principal contractors know exactly what they are doing in this regard.