Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We debated this on Committee Stage and I made a contribution. Every year for the past number of years I have tabled an amendment to the Finance Bill similar to that tabled by Deputy Boyd Barrett. I mentioned on Committee Stage the ongoing work announced earlier in the year. This has been dragging out. I agree with Deputy Burton there are legitimate self-employed people and nobody is suggesting there are not. There are many of them, including friends of mine and family members. This is not the issue here. The issue is if the Minister knows what is happening on the street and if he speaks to individuals who are chippies or bricklayers or doing a bit of plastering, they will tell him they know they must present themselves as self-employed. This is just the way it is. It has become the accepted norm. This is because it has been going on not for the past number of weeks or months but the past decade. This was here during the boom times.

We have all the consequences in terms of entitlements, and the serious consequences if someone was seriously injured on a building site, or lost his or her life, given the difference between being self-employed and being an employee. Where I agree with Deputy Burton is some people, particularly younger people, do not see the value of being insured. They do not see themselves falling ill, getting injured or being made unemployed. Some of them go from day to day or week to week. Others just know this is the only way they will get employment and this is now the accepted norm. What is lacking is an urgency from the Government and a very strong statement to say this clampdown is happening. There are two sides to this. There is workers' rights and lost revenue or revenue foregone to the State. For this reason, it needs to be dealt with in far more urgency than the Government has shown heretofore.

I am not sure for how many years I have tabled this type of amendment, but it has been going on for a number of years. I hope that next year we will not have to table an amendment looking for a report into bogus self-employment and the work will have been done by Revenue to ensure it has clamped down. What Deputy Boyd Barrett is asking for is something that is worthy of acceptance. It is similar to what I have argued for in previous years. It would begin to send a very clear signal. What is required is a very strong statement from the Minister and the Government to individuals, businesses, companies and developers who support and promote this that it is over, their days are numbered regarding the scheme and we are giving them notice they need to move away from this type of facilitation and encouragement of this type of bogus self-employment, and ample time to do so and, if they do not, we are willing to come in as a Parliament with very stiff penalties. What we should not see in next year's finance Bill is that we are giving them 12 months or two years to get their house in order. The statements need to be made now that there is a clampdown on this and we will not tolerate it in terms of workers' rights or lost tax to the Exchequer, and that notice is being issued on the floor of the Dáil today.

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