Mr. John McKeon:

We are reviewing the implications of the judgment with our colleagues in Revenue. There is a high-level group examining the matter. There are five tests for self-employed status: mutuality of obligation; substitution; enterprise; integration; and control.

The Karshan judgment particularly focused on the mutuality of obligation test and in effect, changed the understanding of the law around that. Prior to that, there was the Barry case which was actually to do with agricultural inspectors, where the High Court found that there had to be an ongoing relationship where there was an obligation to offer and to take work, and that if that underlying ongoing relationship did not exist, there was no mutuality of obligation. The Karshan judgment, in effect, has said that this is not the case and that each individual engagement is separate. For example, if a worker comes in and works one week and then six weeks later works for another week, each of those are separate instances of employment and have to be looked at individually. That is what the Karshan judgment in effect determined. We are having a look at that with Revenue. Arising from the work of this committee, we undertook some time ago in 2018-19 to set up an employment status investigation unit. Normally, we respond to workers or employers coming to us looking for classification. We set up this unit to examine cases proactively. We have grown it and there are now 18 full-time inspectors on it. We are going sector by sector through the sectors where this is most prone. We are involved in a number of big investigations at the moment into individual sectors and individual employees. That is the approach we will continue to take.