Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Minister will be aware that employers, trade unions, professional bodies and individuals made some 23 submissions to that working group. When will the working group report? Will the report be available to us soon, or what is the position, because that might be a help?

I am all in favour of self-employment - people starting up their own businesses have provided 300,000 jobs in the economy and they are very important - but I do not want some unscrupulous employers pulling a stroke, then disappearing and people who have been classified as self-employed not having any contribution record when the whole shebang collapses under them and being left high and dry. Of course, then such self-employed are subject to all sorts of investigations and everything else. The buck stops with them as opposed to the unscrupulous employer who has pulled a stroke on them. I want to protect the rights of those people who should be classified as employees but are classified as self-employed.

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