Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

On the issue of bogus self-employment, the response of the Minister for Finance on this issue is shocking. There is no acknowledgement of the serious level of wholesale tax fraud that is going on in this area. The State is not interested in dealing with it. There is an interesting parallel between current events in Greece and the attitude of our State to the issue of bogus self-employment, which is rampant in the construction sector here. There has been much talk about the biggest problem for Greece being that the Greek people do not want to pay taxes. In comparison with Greece, Ireland is a legally compliant State where people play by the rules and the State is very serious about going after people who play fast and loose with the tax system. Public sector and PAYE workers in Greece pay their taxes in the same way as people in Ireland. It is taken out of their pockets.

In so far as there is a problem with regard to tax in Greece, it revolves around the self-employed sector. It is true that there is a large self-employed sector in Greece and that there has been an expansion of that sector in Ireland. This is a sector which Fine Gael in particular would like to see expand even further. Self-employment in the construction sector has expanded significantly from what it was in the good old days. While previously workers in that sector would have been employed directly as PAYE workers, there has been an exponential expansion of self-employment in the sector and, with that, wholesale abuse and exploitation of that category of self-employed construction workers.

In regard to the amount of tax collected from the self-employed in the construction sector, as against that collected from PAYE workers in the sector, the numbers of which in each category are similar, while hundreds of millions are collected from the PAYE sector, a minus is often recorded in respect of those categorised as self-employed. Even where an amount is collected, it is derisory. Any cursory examination of the number of people who are supposed to be self-employed in the construction sector would indicate that not all of them could be, in reality, self-employed. This sector has expanded massively and direct employment has reduced in tandem, the result of which has been a very significant loss to the Exchequer. We hear constant and entirely credible, confirmed in many cases, examples of tax fraud and abuse and exploitation of the RTC-1 system.

It is clear to me that the Minister for Finance and, in my view, Fine Gael, because it is ideologically committed to this whole notion, are not interested in dealing with this issue. They choose to turn a blind eye to this because it enables the State to have public contract work such as school buildings construction done cheaply, even if it means workers are being exploited and the tax system is being abused. In their view, they are promoting competition. This abuse is taking place on a widespread basis. While the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, is not willing to address this issue, one would expect a Labour Minister to avail of any opportunity to address it and this legislation presents such an opportunity.

I was contacted again this morning by one of the Rhatigan's workers, for whom address of this issue is now a crusade. Fair play to him because week-in, week-out he provides me with details of where this is going on. I have not had time yet to have a proper discussion with him but he left a message on my phone this morning about another site where this is going on. He said that contractors from the North have come up with a new scam, which has something to do with invoicing of the main contractor, to get around Scope or NERA on the issue of compliance in the context of self-employment. This is rampant and the Minister of State knows it. We need a specific mandate for the commission to address this issue in a serious way.

Deputy Tóibín made some important points on the wider issue of the minimum hourly rate. This is of critical importance when it comes to the issue of accommodation. The ability of people to access affordable accommodation is at crisis point. While this is obviously a serious problem for the people, it will soon be a major problem for our economy if people cannot afford accommodation because their wages are so low. The question of wages being sufficient to allow people to put a roof over their heads is critical. This requires serious consideration. It is untenable that some people are paying 50%, 60% and sometimes 70% of their income on keeping a roof over their heads. It is shocking. Various bodies across Europe recommend that people should not be paying more than a quarter or, at most, a third of their income for accommodation. Otherwise, they will get into serious financial trouble. People here are spending virtually all of their income on accommodation. Sometimes even that is not enough to keep a roof over their heads. The Low Pay Commission should, as part of its work, examine whether the level of pay here is adequate to ensure that people who are working can afford to pay for accommodation. People should not have to fork out every penny they have to do that.

The proposed amendment is very good in that it points in this direction. Even if the Minister of State will not accept it, the issue of affordability of accommodation and its relationship to wage levels must be the focus of this or any future Government.

See this speech in context