Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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Of course. Market and supply, unfortunately. Between 1998 and 2000 a lot of visits were made, particularly to construction sites. As I recall, approximately 12,000 workers were found to be misclassified as self-employed, which is in the region of 20% of the workers investigated. What has been done about that since?

Mr. Cody mentioned that information for the unions is useful. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions carried out its own research and found that 22% of construction workers were misclassified and calculated that this ran into a loss of hundreds of millions in revenue. I would take it that Revenue is concerned about the loss of a portion of employers' PRSI. How many inspections are carried out annually? How many inspections have been carried out this year?

I was struck by the success of the visits and inspections by Revenue staff and how they showed an issue existed. Any of us with friends who work in the construction industry know that there is an issue in this regard. We also know about it because our constituents have complained to us. Obviously, the workers are not in a great position to complain because if a person complains or raises the issue, he or she will be out on his or her ear, particularly if he or she is operating on the basis of bogus self-employment. How many inspections of the construction sector and other sectors are carried out annually? How many inspections does Revenue hope to carry out this year?