Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Construction Industry Federation has acknowledged that there is industrial relations instability at the moment because of the absence of registered employment agreements. It has said that this is causing reputational damage to the industry. Workers are being forced into bogus self-employment contracts. They are not getting the industry wage. They are being paid below the minimum wage in this State. This practice is rife across Government contracts where the Government is the employer. I know of a young man who works for Kishogue. When he went onto the site one day, he was told he was no longer employed but instead was self-employed and was employing a handful of other workers. He was given a sum of money to pay those workers, who had not been paid for weeks. Of course that sum of money was not near to reaching the minimum wage. The Government has hidden behind the Contractors Administration Services, Scope and the National Employment Rights Authority, all of which have been completely ineffectual to date in dealing with this crisis. We need to know whether the forthcoming industrial relations Bill will deal with cases in which the principal contractor washes his or her hands of the actions of subcontractor companies. Such practices are leading to the creation of bogus self-employment contracts.

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