Seanad debates

Tuesday, 2 February 2016

2:30 pm

Photo of David NorrisDavid Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday was St. Brigid's day. I always think of the great poem by Antaine Ó Raifteirí:

Anois, teacht an Earraigh, beidh an lá ag dul chun síneadh

'S tar éis na Féile Bríde ardóidh mé mo sheol.

I feel a bit like raising my own sails, in particular with an election in the offing. That was yesterday. Today is James Joyce's 134th birthday, something I thought was worthy of mention in the Seanad.

I will turn to matters less pleasant. I would like to raise the question of workers in the construction industry, 50% of whom are described as self-employed. They are not. Rather, they are forced into this situation by their employers who thereby avoid paying employer's PRSI and all the rest. It seems to me to be very cruel and wrong. This kind of bogus self-employment has cost the Exchequer about €80 million a year, a considerable amount of money. In effect, bogus self-employment means that workers and taxpayers end up subsidising unscrupulous employers.

Some protesters at the gate of Leinster House gave me an advertisement from a recruitment company, which I will not mention by name. It categorises a number of things under the heading "advantages of using a recruitment service", whereby the agency engages individual workers and forces them to be self-employed. The advantages include the fact that there is no PRSI to pay, which is 10.7% of total pay, no holiday pay, which is 8% of total pay, no pension to pay, which is 10% to 12% of total pay, no requirement to pay for bank holidays, sick leave, redundancy or the administration costs of payroll, including PAYE and PRSI, no recruitment or advertising costs, no disputes with employees, that is, unfair dismissals - there are no rights there - and the ability to hire and off-hire staff at one hour's notice throughout the country. The expression "off-hire" is wonderful. I had never heard of before. It is a bit like the expression "downsizing". It means firing or getting rid of people. This is a pretty atrocious advertisement because every single thing listed is a violation of workers' rights. I know there is some kind of commission or inquiry in place, but it is not a full one and I am not satisfied it is completely independent. Will the Leader to contact the relevant Minister and ask that there be a full-blooded inquiry? Why should 50% of workers in the construction industry be so disadvantaged?

It is time we examined the issue of self-employed people. We always talking about entrepreneurs and small and medium enterprises doing so much work for the country and that they are the engine on which we will rely for the recovery. If somebody who has created jobs and employed people becomes unemployed, he or she receives nothing. That is an utter disgrace. Such people should be looked after in the same manner as everybody else in this country.

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