Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I do, because this has gone on and on. Billy fought for most of working life on this but so have many thousands of building workers. Indeed, I have cited to the Minister recent examples of where this sort of practice continues to go on.

Let me cite a few facts. Billy and his colleagues would always say, "It is not just that we lose out, but that the public is losing out," because if they were paying tax there would be more money available for housing, health, etc., and it is a fact. I asked the Minister about this, and there was a table he promised me on the figures relating to the tax that comes back from relevant contracts tax, RCT, as against PAYE in the construction sector, and two weeks after I asked the question I have not got the table, but I got some figures myself. In 2016, €255 million came back in tax revenue from RCT, the supposedly self-employed sector, but over €200 million of that was given back in offsets and refunds, and only a net amount of €49 million came in to the Exchequer. That covers I do not know how many workers because the Minister did not give me the figures. I would say it covers approximately 60,000 workers and all we get back is €49 million in tax whereas in the same year the Exchequer got back €536 million from approximately the same number of directly-employed workers in construction.

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