Mr. John McKeon:

As I mentioned in my opening remarks and again to Deputy Munster, the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Social Protection, Rural and Community Development and the Islands did a very comprehensive report which was published in June. I recommend that people read it. I do not agree with everything in the report, but it is a very good and comprehensive report. It dealt with many of the points the Deputy raised.

It points out, as I pointed out earlier, that under law, the Department makes decisions about employment status for social insurance purposes. We make those decisions independently of Revenue. Revenue makes decisions in respect of tax, which are made independently of us. The Workplace Relations Commission makes decisions in respect of employment rights, which are also made independently. The report from the other committee recommended that it should be centralised in one body, which would be the Workplace Relations Commission. I think it is not a bad recommendation and we probably need to look at whether it should be centralised in one area.

The Deputy asked about whether we would look at individuals or status. I am aware that this is disputed. From my experience, direct inquiries and direct discussions with people in the Department, we make decisions based on individuals. Individuals are assessed for social insurance purposes based on the circumstances of their particular case. We use criteria which are set out in the code of conduct for the determination of employment status, which we developed jointly with Ibec, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, Revenue, the Workplace Relations Commission and the Labour Court in the early 2000s. That was recently updated. We use the five criteria in that code of conduct to make the assessment. Each assessment is individual.