Ray Butler (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will not delay everyone. This has been a great debate and I thank everyone who contributed to it. I also thank the Minister and I am delighted to hear about what he is doing behind the scenes, which follows on from what Deputy Joan Burton was doing. Senator Martin Conway stated: "Well said." We now have a Minister who is in the real world as regards social protection for the self-employed.

The main issue has always been opting in and opting out. It must be mandatory because it cannot be voluntary. When the Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association, ISME, presented to the social protection committee previously, Mr. Mark Fielding had conducted a survey of his members, of whom more than 70% were in favour of a new stamp for the self-employed, but the split on whether is should be made voluntary or mandatory was 60:40. We have a bit to do to bring people around to it being mandatory, but it is the only way it would work. I mean no one any disrespect, but when various businesses were allowed to opt out of everything during the Celtic tiger, it was catastrophic. When the crash came, people were not even registered for social welfare payments. They did not exist for the State because they had opted out of certain schemes and of paying taxes and PRSI. It must, therefore, be mandatory and we will never have a better chance to start than now. We are at such a low base in people returning to work. We could build the pot in order that, if there is another crash, we will have something in place for the self-employed.

I agree with Senator Kevin Humphreys on the bogus self-employed. We need legislation in this regard. According to an article I read, €20 million per year was going by the wayside due to unscrupulous employers making people self-employed.I saw the same thing happen in my town of Trim where a lot of people got jobs as couriers and were made self-employed. Unfortunately, when the crash came and they lost their jobs their families were entitled to nothing. These people should have been employed by the company. Employers used this method to escape paying contributions. The same is happening all over the country and, therefore, we must bring in legislation to tackle the problem.

Definitely, we have to cost everything. I am sure, as I join the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Social Protection again, that we will have a lot of debates on this issue and a lot of these issues will have to be debated. I wish to say to Senator Devine that I never played politics with this issue. I was devastated when I lost my business and, therefore, I have never played politics with this issue. I would like her and her party to take back the claim made that my party played politics in this area because I certainly have not done so. I came in here six years ago and when I started this campaign a lot of the civil servants who I met on the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Social Protection looked at me as if I was an alien from outer space because I was a businessman. I mean no disrespect to Members of the Oireachtas but I believe we do not have enough businesspeople here. I would like more businesspeople to go into politics.

This issue was a hard one for the civil servants to swallow because they were happy with the status quoeven though people were suffering through the crash. I am talking about the people who had created jobs, paid into the Exchequer and helped this country become a great Celtic tiger. However, when these same people needed help when the crash came there was absolutely nothing for them only devastation. I know men who were assessed on machinery they bought during the Celtic tiger, such as machines for laying tarmacadam or laying pavements, that were valued at €100,000. One cannot bring such machinery into a bank or have one's family eat it so they were worthless. It was crazy that such machinery was used in assessments.

I am delighted to be here for this debate. We had a brilliant debate and I thank everybody for expressing their views. There is no perfect fit when it comes to social protection and the self-employed. I remember having a huge debate with Mr. Mark Fielding and other people about this matter. I threw the following question across the room in the Oireachtas. Do we leave it the way it is? Nobody answered me because the answer was we cannot. I am delighted that Deputy Varadkar has been appointed Minister for Social Protection and that he will do something about the matter. I thank him very much and I thank everybody.