Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend the committee chaired by Deputy Naughten, the previous committee of the 32nd Dáil which carried out quite an amount of research and the current committee for producing a very substantive 72-page report. I commend my party colleagues, Deputies Kerrane and Paul Donnelly, who are members of the current committee and contributed to this work. I commend all members of the committee, including, in particular, Deputy Joan Collins, who acted as rapporteur. I commend the 12 recommendations of the report.

Bogus self-employment cheats us all. Unfortunately, we have never seen a Minister stand with that particular phrase for a photo opportunity. I have often noted that the best example of populism in modern Irish politics was the disgraceful campaign that tried to imply there was widespread fraud among people claiming social welfare payments. There is fraud and it should be tackled but it is, I would guess, only a fraction of what is impacted as a result of bogus self-employment. The fraud or the overpayments that take place within social welfare happen in the here and now. Fraud that takes place in bogus self-employment has an impact on the here and now but it could be still having an impact in decades to come. At a time when this House is debating whether the Government parties can get away with increasing the pension age, as was their previous stated intention, money from the PRSI pot is being lost every year and will continue to be lost for some time.

The workers who are at the tail end of this practice are denied employment rights, surety of tenure and basic entitlements and the Exchequer is denied ring-fenced funding for pensions, sick pay, unemployment benefits and so on. If those workers are unemployed or need assistance for a period, every other taxpayer has to pick up the slack while a few companies - I accept it is probably only a few companies - pocket the difference. The difficulty is that we are unsure as to how extensive this practice is. One ICTU report estimated that between 2007 and 2014 up to €640 million was lost to the Irish taxpayer as a result of this practice.

The committee report makes a number of key recommendations, including that the code of practice that determines self-employment versus employment be updated. According to the response given by the Minister of State, Deputy English, that has been carried out. However, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions has described it as wholly inadequate because it does not have supporting legislation. The committee proposed what I believe is a very sensible and logical proposal, namely, that an advertisement campaign promoting the right to apply to have one's employment status adjudicated be rolled out. There is no evidence or suggestion in the Minister of State's response that that is something that will be given the type of resources that previous campaigns were given. Crucially, the committee recommended that the Department of Social Protection and Revenue together develop an inspections target and regime. In my own engagements with Revenue and the Department on this matter, they consistently passed the buck as to who is responsible for any given aspect. On the ten other recommendations I have heard very little from the Minister of State that suggests an eagerness to implement them.

I am a member of the Committee of Public Accounts. The Minister of State will be aware that that committee has also dedicated a significant amount of time to this matter because of the overarching aspect of this issue but also because of the significant concern about Exchequer funds being lost. The Committee of Public Accounts also produced a report on the matter, specifically on what was essentially a back room that affected the courier sector, which deal was done in the 1990s and is still having repercussions. It is a considerable issue for the Committee of Public Accounts to get either the Department of Social Protection or Revenue to acknowledge that this is an issue, let alone the extent or scale of it.

Our State broadcaster, RTÉ, was on the verge of misleading the Committee of Public Accounts in regard to its employment prospects. It took four members of the committee asking a representative of RTÉ a question in regard to its settlements with Revenue before RTÉ finally acknowledged to the committee that it had reached a financial settlement with Revenue. It took a number of weeks of deliberations and correspondence with the Committee of Public Accounts to find out that RTÉ had paid €1.22 million to Revenue. The scary fact is that much more in costs are to come, perhaps, with Revenue but certainly with the Department of Social Protection and with the staff involved. We have no idea how much that will be. This is at a time when RTÉ is seeking more Government funding. As recently as last week at a meeting of the Committee of Public Accounts RTÉ would not commit to providing details even for those workers for whom it has reached settlements with Revenue in order that those workers would receive what they are owed in lost revenue and entitlements.

It also needs to be noted that in many cases the issue of bogus self-employment disproportionately affects vulnerable workers. I was also a member of the Special Committee on Covid-19 Response. At the height of the pandemic - the scariest part of the pandemic - that committee heard from representatives of meat plant workers, predominantly workers from eastern Europe who were supposedly independent contractors for a company in respect of which they registered in a different country, in some cases, that they had never been to. We had people from a particular country being brought into Ireland to operate a line on a meat factory and as far as our official structures were concerned they were working for companies that were based in an entirely different country. This is happening. It is, I fear, more widespread than is acknowledged. We found out that in many cases these individuals were living in unfit accommodation that was owned by their employers. In at least one case, when the scope section determined in favour of the worker, there was no follow-up in terms of an audit of the factory to find out whether there were other cases. Most would acknowledge that there were more cases.

This issue has been raised on quite a number of occasions by representatives of all political parties. I have heard Deputies and Senators raise it and, as we know, committees in the area of social protection in the previous Dáil and this Dáil have done great work in this area. The Committee of Public Accounts is to pursue this matter further. Most members of that committee accept that there could be substantial funding lost to the State. What we need now is action. I welcome the Minister of State's response and his remarks in regard to taking this issue seriously, but what we now need to see the evidence of that. As I said, this is, potentially, an issue that will have a profound impact for our pension regime, our PRSI base and, particularly and most importantly in the short term, for the workers who are being exploited in the here and now.

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