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

I welcome that. I am not saying that there cannot be oversights. Of course there can be. People can make mistakes and there sometimes are grey areas. We are discussing quality employment. The majority of the employment in the companies that receive this relief should be direct PAYE employment. Of course it is reasonable and legitimate to employ some contractors or people on a freelance or self-employed basis, but if they comprise the vast majority and there are hardly any PAYE employees with continuity of employment and so on, then there is something wrong with the balance. This is something that the Government has acknowledged in terms of bogus self-employment in areas like construction. In RTÉ, for example, 50 people were found to have been wrongly classified as contractors when they were actually employed by RTÉ.

I appeal for us to examine this matter closely and find out who the employees in the industry are. It is a simple question. Who are the registered trainees? How long have they been trainees? That means that we will have to have a defined training period, by the way. At what point does someone cease to become a trainee and become qualified in a particular grade? Can we have a register of all the people who are qualified? Can we have a register of all the people who are employees in the various grades so that we know who the employees in the industry actually are? We can then work out whether there is fairness in terms of the allocation of employment, compliance with employment law and so on. These are basic elements and reasonable requests. That is why I am asking for there to be a study. I am not doing this to be flippant. However this amendment goes when I press it, I acknowledge the Minister is taking the issue seriously. I would like us to examine it comprehensively, set out all of the facts and establish what the playing field is in a fair way that sees the genuine buy-in by and involvement of all stakeholders in putting that picture together.

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