Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

New and legitimate forms of work have emerged and will continue to emerge. It is not just happening in Ireland. In fact, Ireland is probably lagging behind the rest of the world in the uptake of new forms of work, which is not bad. We constantly talk about bogus self-employment and attribute it to a particular industry, as if it were bad. People being made self-employed when they do not want to be and should not be is definitely not good, but the emergence of new ways of working is not bad. What I want to be sure about is that all of the standard employment rights for people with normal jobs are available to those who work in the gig or platform economy, as well as all of the benefits of which employees are able to avail under the social insurance system. We are improving all of them in another piece of legislation that will go through the House next week. I want to make sure the two situations stand equal with each other and will not stop as long as I am in this position. However, that does not directly answer the Deputy's question. I will continue to pursue research that may end up as legislation to address the large number who do it voluntarily or those who are made to do it, namely, those who declare to be self-employed in order to work on a contract basis with a company. These companies are not paying into the Social Insurance Fund for the people concerned and that is wrong. That is something we should pursue and it will have to be pursued with legislation. As the Deputy is well aware, it does not just come within the remit of my Department, but for as long as I am in this role it is something I will pursue.

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