Mr. Andrew Smith:

The committee has my submission so I will summarise it. I realise that the committee has a wide remit but I would like to focus on construction. The number of apprentices in the construction industry has fallen to a level that cannot serve the current and future needs of the Irish construction industry. In 2005 there were 599 new bricklaying apprenticeships. By 2015 the number had fallen to 26. Last year there were 52. This was not confined to just the bricklaying trade. Carpenters, painters, plasterers and other construction trades were also decimated. Most people would say that the reason for this was the crash in the construction industry and to a certain degree they would be right. However, while the industry is on the road to recovery - anyone looking at the Dublin skyline can see this - young people still do not want to become construction apprentices.

In the submission I sent to the committee, I stated that being a construction apprentice today was a mug's game and I stand over that assertion. When I became an apprentice in 1978 I went to An Chomhairle Oiliúna, AnCO, for my first nine months. I then worked on construction sites and went one day per week to Bolton Street for the four years. Today an apprenticeship is made up of seven modules. The first module is on-site. The second is 20 weeks in a training centre. The third, fifth and seventh are on-site, and the second and fourth are in an educational college. Today, for the privilege of taking up an apprenticeship the young person has to pay €1,000 for module two and module four. The main reason that becoming an apprentice today is a mug's game is bogus self-employment. Bogus self-employment is spreading at an alarming rate through the construction industry. It is when a contractor gives the work out to a subcontractor and he then forces the workers to work on an electronic relevant contracts tax, ERCT, basis. There were always subcontractors in the industry, and a small amount of bogus self-employment. In 2005 approximately 24% of construction workers were self-employed. Today that number is almost 40%. In 2007 the trade unions met with the Revenue Commissioners to address this growing curse on our industry. Both sides agreed that steps had to be taken and the code of practice for determining employment and self-employment status was revised. We in the trade union movement expected a fall in bogus self-employment, but this did not happen. In fact, the opposite happened. The code was not implemented. The rules were relaxed, and in 2012 the Revenue Commissioners went online. By doing this they gave the power to unscrupulous contractors and subcontractors to classify the status of another citizen.

What does all this mean? To give an example, when I was a bricklayer and went looking for a job, the main contractor - usually the name on the hoarding or the gate - was the employer and would employ me on a PAYE basis on that site. The contractor might employ 30 bricklayers and in turn would probably have approximately six apprentices. This is not the case at present. A third party subcontractor will now hire me on a site. He will then inform me that I work on an ERCT basis. He then contacts Revenue and changes my tax status. If I object, I lose my job. I am then self-employed and as such I do not get PRSI, PAYE, holiday pay or pension. If it rains, I am sent home without pay. If something breaks down on site I am sent home. I can be fired without notice. I get no redundancy regardless of the length of time I have worked for the subcontractor.

When I am laid off I must go to social welfare and be means tested. I have a zero-hour contract and in reality I have no rights. The State has put in place a situation where I am now treated like a second-class citizen. A site with 30 brick layers who are all bogus self-employed do not meet the criteria to have apprentices on the site. For the 30 bricklayers there will be no apprentices. The contractors and the sub-contractors make larger profits from operating in this way.