Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for the response. However, the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection has not grasped the scale of the problem with bogus self-employment. We all meet people in our constituency offices who believed they were on different contracts but found out that they were not employees but self-employed. This, in turn, caused problems when they retired or needed to access social services.

Will the Minister of State forward our concerns to the Minister? Will the Minister introduce legislation to outlaw this practice? If not, why not? It has been done in other jurisdictions. For example, in Australia, the Fair Work Act 2009 protects genuine employees from sham independent contracting arrangements and outlines an employer’s obligations in establishing an employment relationship. In addition, the Prohibition of Bogus Self-Employment Bill 2018 has been introduced in this House.

As a result of the evidence provided to the Joint Committee on Employment Affairs and Social Protection last week, will the Minister make the necessary changes to ensure inspection records are kept in order that evidence can be gathered to establish how widespread the practice is? Bogus self-employment needs to be addressed immediately to ensure workers have their full employment rights and the State does not lose out on millions of euro in lost revenue and PRSI. The Minister needs to act on this issue.

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