Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I offer Solidarity-People Before Profit's sympathy and solidarity to Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin's friends and family.

With regard to promised legislation, I want to ask about the Employment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2017, in particular those provisions relating to bogus self-employment, on which an amendment was passed against the wishes of the Government. I do so because it seems to me the Government has its head in the sand in regard to the issue of bogus self-employment, that it wishes the problem did not exist in the way that it does and that it dramatically understates the extent of the problem, given 12% of workers in this country are self-employed with no employees, and are, therefore, liable to be bogus self-employed. In particular, I ask because the Department was before the Joint Committee on Employment Affairs and Social Protection this morning, where it said it keeps no records of bogus self-employment. It does investigations and has done maybe 3,000 investigations in the last year, but at the end of the process it does not keep any record on who is bogus self-employed. Is that accurate? How is it defensible and how does it indicate any seriousness in terms of dealing with this problem, which is a massive problem in construction and in regard to deliveries, couriers and so on?

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