Mr. Niall Cody:

From our experience, what is more prevalent in IT is the use of company structure. Generally, the higher the income, the more likely it is to involve a corporate structure. The lower the income, the more likely it is to be employment versus self-employment, and that is where the bogus problem arises in our case. The challenge we all have is that the whole gig economy is very different and there are developments going on at EU level looking at this area. If we had not been successful in Karshan, we would probably have been looking at putting proposals to the Department of Finance. I have a concern that if a person is paid less than the minimum wage, it is hard to see why he or she should be self-employed and similarly if a person is paid less than the standard rate for the industry and being treated as self-employed. What we thought we might have to propose if we did not win Karshan is the bringing in of a system where if a person's hourly rate was more than a certain amount, he or she must be taxed under the PAYE system regardless of his or her status.