Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The programme for Government contains several commitments to support the self-employed. I want to ask about those forced into false self-employment. Thousands of people across the country are being forced into bogus self-employment rather than being given proper contracts of employment. This is happening in construction, in the media and in the growing gig economy in a variety of sectors. The problem is resulting in significant losses of employment contributions to the PRSI system, and workers are suffering loss of rights including sick pay, redundancy entitlements and so on. The taxpayer has been deprived of the PRSI payments employers should be paying and my colleague, Senator Ged Nash, published a Bill yesterday to outlaw false self-employment, a Bill which has garnered a great deal of support from across the trade union movement. When will the Government legislate in this area? When will the Government publish the report on bogus self-employment that was commissioned more than two years ago by the then Minister, Deputy Burton?

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