Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Bill has its origins in the Seanad and been introduced by my colleague, Deputy Alan Kelly. It allows for self-employed persons to engage in collective pay bargaining with employers. I note, however, that the Labour Party spokesman in the Seanad, Senator Gerald Nash, said the Bill would apply to persons such as actors engaged in voice-over work, session musicians and freelance journalists. He also said it was the culmination of a 12 year campaign and that although the Labour Party might be in opposition, it was still delivering significant change for working people. This is delusion and denial at an almost unprecedented level. Perhaps the Labour Party might remember the pointed criticism of former Labour Party Deputy Eamon Moloney when he said:

I do not like using the word "austerity" ... When I was growing up we just used the word "hardship". The people in most working class estates do not use the word "austerity". I am aware it is cool for the career socialists to speak about austerity but it is an awful word. Hardship is much better, and people like Dickens used it. I do not know how the word "austerity" crept in.

Do these sound like the words of someone who believes his former party champions workers' rights?Does the decimation the Labour Party experienced at the local and general elections reflect this so-called championing of workers' rights? It abandoned them. Whatever the merits of the Bill, I cannot listen to the brazen hypocrisy of a political party that broke almost every political promise it had made and betrayed the working class and the working poor in communities throughout the State in a five-year period. It now comes along with this initiative. On a daily basis I hear Deputy Alan Kelly claiming this, that and the other. These are overhangs from what he was going to deliver and had in the pipeline, but this seems to be an overhang from a long 12-year battle.

As a self-employed person, I understand self-employment. As Deputy Michael Harty and others said, self-employed persons are vulnerable workers and the Bill is a missed opportunity. There are self-employed persons in many sectors. It is a strange tactic, but there are many false self-employed persons. Many people are being forced by companies to enter a self-employed role. We need them to have their place at the bargaining table. We need them to be supported because it is a sea change. Whether they are musicians, actors or in other roles in the arts, they need to be supported and respected. It is welcome that this issue is being debated, but we need to be more honest with ourselves and face reality and the challenges for this cohort. They have no support and and will have nothing in the pension pot unless they put it in themselves and very few are able to do this.

If they get sick, they have very few benefits. Therefore, they are a very vulnerable sector and deserve better than what is provided for in the Bill. Government amendments have watered the Bill down also. We need to be mindful of the people concerned and put ourselves in their shoes. They are trying to eke out a living and raise their families and need to have confidence that they will be able to sustain themselves and their families. They want to continue to do the trade they love, but they are only getting lip service from the Government and the institutions of the State.

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