John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for her reply. This has been an issue for some time. Officials from the Department appeared before the Joint Committee on Employment Affairs and Social Protection in connection with it. I acknowledge that there has been a welcome move on the issue because there had been a reluctance to deal with it and a feeling that it was being exaggerated and overstated. The Department was not dealing with it as proactively as it is now. This is a positive move. We need to see the roll-out take place. It needs to be accelerated because as the Department pursues other things like auto-enrolment in pension schemes, people who are bogusly self-employed will lose out more in the future than they do now. I wish the Minister well. This is really important.

The Minister made reference to proposed legislation to protect people who may come forward but who are currently afraid to do so. This is extremely important because the anecdotal evidence we receive is that people are not prepared to put their heads above the parapet because they are afraid of victimisation in terms of the precarious nature of their jobs and fear their jobs may disappear.

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