Mr. John McKeon:

None of that, in terms of interpretation of it, is reflective of the practice. The Chair is quoting correspondence to me dating back 21 years, from a time when I was not even in the Department. That was a long time ago. For as long as I have been in the Department, which is since 2010, a person got their social insurance status, as required by law, based on the circumstances of their particular case, and I have been assured by my predecessors that that has always been the practice.

The Chair's first quote identified a number of criteria. As I said, part of the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness in the early noughties resulted in the code of conduct for determination of employment and self-employment status. That identified five criteria. If memory serves me well, the line about ownership of tools and so on was in that code of conduct. I am not 100% certain of that but I am pretty sure it was. It is, therefore, not a move. I am not aware of any deal that people are talking about. If somebody could show me the deal, I would be interested to see it. I am not aware of any deal. People use the language of a deal.

I do not know whether they think we are trying to do something to help courier companies at the expense of courier staff. That is simply not the case. That is not the ethos or values of the Department. It simply is not the case. There is no reason why we would ever do that. We try to determine cases based on the facts put before us.