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

I accept that here has been some movement on this. It has been a long time coming and building workers have been fighting on this for many years but I accept that there has been movement from the Government and Revenue recently. However, more is needed. There is a protest in the Minister's constituency as we speak involving an approved housing body that is building houses with public money. The Minister should pop down and talk to those involved in that protest.

Deputy Fitzmaurice is correct in saying there may be legitimate reasons for subcontractors to be involved in projects. However, we must ask whether the people who are working for the contractor or subcontractor are getting payslips, are being properly taxed and properly classified. Is the subcontractor hiring lots of people who are all being classified as self-employed entrepreneurs? Often these workers are not self-employed and are getting paid less than they would be paid if they were directly employed. That is the main issue. Similarly, I have spoken to people working in the film industry who have told me that a lot of problems in that industry could be sorted quite easily. They suggest that officials from Revenue's joint investigations unit, JIU, or from the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection or the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht visit film production sites before filming starts and obtain a list of all of the people who will be working on the project, including their names and grades and whether they are working on contract or are self-employed. In that way, everyone will be properly classified and abuse cannot happen. This would require additional resources for Revenue, or whatever body is responsible, in order to be effective. Resources are needed, as is a willingness to do this properly. We also need legislation which is why a report on this, as per my amendment, would be good. We need legislation to tighten up things like the definition of an employee and an employer in order to make it easier to deal with the grey areas and the areas of dispute and abuse.

See this speech in context