Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

This country is made up of a lot of SMEs. In fact, there are 23,000 SMEs that employ between nine to 45 people and a huge number of SMEs that employ larger numbers of people. Especially the smaller ones, in carrying out their day-to-day work, and especially in the groundworks and machinery side of the housing sector, many people have to go to a site to price a job and look after their workers. These are generally small set-ups and they are trying to do their best. They price the job, get the materials, put in the machinery and make sure their workers are looked after by paying wages and so on. Of late, it seems to be getting harder and harder for small businesses to survive. I noted in the past week that even if people have worked for county councils, they cannot get qualified with Irish Water unless they have done three jobs with Irish Water. That is crazy.

To go back to the matter at hand, the subsistence companies or private operators pay people from the country who drive to Dublin or any of the large cities to build houses if they go farther than a certain distance is what we call "country money". Revenue is changing the goalposts. It is not that any of these people ever want to do anything wrong. Now, before subsistence is paid, Revenue has to be informed. That involves more paperwork.

What the Government needs to understand is that these people do not have a dedicated section in their businesses. These are small family businesses where perhaps a husband and wife price the work, look after the employees, deal with the person they are doing the work for and, at night, do paperwork. Now they will be asked to inform Revenue before they give the money. It is visible every six months or year when businesses do their accounts that country money or subsistence was paid. It is there in black and white, but Revenue now wants this to be input every week before it is even paid saying where the employees were and what they were doing. This adds another layer for people who are struggling and who do a lot of work that is not recognised.

On top of that, Revenue has now published a consultative document on VAT. VAT is paid perhaps every two months, but most businesses pay every six months. The consultative document states that every time a customer pays a business, the business will have to tell Revenue that VAT was collected. These people will be constantly on a computer trying to comply with rules and regulations. It will drive people away from setting up small businesses.

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