Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

When the Deputy was Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection, she and I, as Minister for Finance, launched a consultation process on the use of intermediary-type employment structures and self-employment arrangements, in addition to their impact on tax and PRSI. She will recall also that the consultation invited submissions from interested parties on possible measures to address the loss to the Exchequer that may arise under two sets of arrangements. The first of these is where an individual, who would otherwise be an employee, establishes a company to provide his or her services. The second is where an individual, who is dependent on and under the control of a single employer in the same manner as an employee, is classified as a self-employed individual.

Some 23 submissions were received and a report is being prepared. Indeed, we discussed the report and the wider issue of bogus self-employment generally during our Finance Bill debates in the Dáil late last year. I understand that the report on the consultation process is being been finalised by a working group of officials but it has not yet reached me or my colleague, the current Minister for Social Protection. As soon as it does, we will consider its contents, and then I expect we will publish it. I am not in a position to give the Deputy an exact date for publication but I am informed by officials that the drafting and editing process is now almost complete. After that, a meeting of the working group will take place, after which I expect to receive the report.

It is important to emphasise the nature of the report that is being produced; it is a report on the consultation process. This, however, was not a consultation process into the impact of bogus self-employment arrangements. Specifically, it was a consultation process on the use of intermediary-type employment structures and self-employment arrangements, and their impact on tax and PRSI. The issues are related, but not identical. The report will reflect the views of those individuals and organisations that responded and the analysis of these responses by the working group.

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