David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The practice of bogus self-employment and employers forcing workers on to self-employed contracts when they should be employees is, unfortunately, on the increase. According to the Connect trade union, which organises more than 40,000 tradespeople, it is now rampant in the construction industry. We also see it in the media and film industries, particularly in RTÉ, and in many other sectors.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions calculates that the loss to the Exchequer is approximately €80 million per year and amounts to €680 million since 2007. With all this in mind, it is baffling that the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection keeps no records in cases of bogus self-employment, despite carrying out inspections to apparently identify the problem. The Department cites that in 2017 it carried out 2,698 employer reviews with savings of €2.27 million recorded, which we welcome, but it could not tell the joint committee the number of these reviews which resulted in bogus-self employment being identified. We have a bizarre situation where inspections are being carried out, yet no data are being kept on the level of bogus self-employment found. That begs the question as to why the Department would even bother carrying out the inspections in the first place. Despite keeping no records of bogus self-employment, the Department believes in some reports it cites that bogus self-employment is not significant or prevalent. This shows a very lax attitude on behalf of the Department to the issue of bogus self-employment and no real intention of tackling it. While on the one hand the Department is happy to put pressure on ordinary citizens to recoup money where it makes a mistake and an overpayment is made, and the Government was happy to roll out a campaign on so-called welfare cheats which itself turned out to be bogus, it does not show the same urgency when it comes to employers using this practice.

The Government has said time and again that this is not an issue, yet it is not collecting the data to demonstrate how serious an issue this is. That is a failing on behalf of the Government and I want to know how that will be rectified.

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