Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

When this was discussed on Committee Stage, I mentioned to the Minister that when I was Minister for Social Protection the Department initiated a review to be conducted in conjunction with the Department of Finance and the Revenue Commissioners.

The Minister indicated at that stage that he hoped the scope study and review in regard to self-employment might be available within the next few weeks. Could he provide details on the timeline for this? This issue is only going to be solved by looking at the definition of "self-employment" and recognising that there are many people who are genuinely self-employed but that there is also an increasing number of people who are not genuinely self-employed. I do not believe Deputy Boyd Barrett acknowledges the number of people in various trades in the building industry who are genuinely self-employed. It would be foolish to suggest that they are not self-employed. We should move from the fantasy that nobody in the building industry is self-employed. Many members of my family work in the building trade and it is really hard to tell a young man in his late teens or early 20s that he ought to be properly and fully insured. At that age people prefer to see more money in their hand and they do not think there will ever be a day when they might be unemployed or, God forbid, that they could have an accident in which they would end up being laid off work. The real problem arises if they are self-employed in a bogus way when they ought to be employees. The building trade in a boom and bust situation, or even outside a boom and bust situation, can be capricious and uncertain and weather can intervene in projects. People then have no fall back. The social consequences for society is that we have a group of people who fail to build up pension entitlements and other social insurance entitlements and they are left with nothing. Equally, other people end up paying. If they are doing well in self-employment they can end up paying an awful lot of money for private income continuance plans when, in fact, if they were included in a proper pay related social insurance structure, they would be entitled to a retirement pension.

The third aspect is the impact on the general taxpayer where we have a large grey area around taxation compliance. The Revenue Commissioners have done a big job of improving the RCT system but there are too many people in it. While this measure relates to employment in the construction industry, there are issues around, for example, those who do deliveries, such as the Deliveroo people, and other trades. The issues may also be moving in to the taxi area. Thankfully, Ireland has stronger laws than the UK with regard to employment structures, hours of work, etc., but as that scope study and review was initiated some time ago, I would appreciate if the Minister would advise Members as to when the report might become available. I understand the Revenue Commissioners have worked on it, and if there is more work that needs to be done by the Department of Social Protection, I am sure the Minister could pass on that message to his colleague, the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Leo Varadkar.

I acknowledge Deputy Peter Burke's contribution. Another situation also arises because of the way the building industry operates. While many contractors go out of their way to comply with regulations and are very careful about that, there are also situations where large numbers of people are effectively bogus self-employed by particular contractors and those kinds of jobs lay the ground for risk-taking in health and safety matters. There are many negative, knock-on consequences, including the potential for fraud on the taxpayer and a loss of taxation. We spoke in the House earlier about how much it costs to build a house, but if a large proportion of the money currently being invested in buying houses, by young couples or by older people buying homes for retirement, ends up in the grey economy, it is not going to do the rest of us any good. While this is a very difficult area to regulate, I believe it is worth doing. I welcome any detailed review. As there is a review under way, it would be helpful if the Minister could indicate when it might be available.

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