Gerald Nash (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I propose an amendment to the Order of Business to take No. 18 on the Supplementary Order Paper before No. 1. Bogus self-employment is a major issue. It is prevalent in the construction and agriculture sectors and it is becoming more prevalent in the ICT, financial services, legal, media and transport sectors.Anybody who is familiar with this phenomenon will know it denies workers of their entitlements and the protections that every other worker in this country should expect to have. It is an insidious practice. It also deprives the State of up to €60 million in lost tax and PRSI revenue, a figure that I draw from a recent report published by the Minister, Deputy Regina Doherty, when the previous Government asked the Revenue Commissioners and the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection to undertake an investigation and examination of the losses to the State in terms of the practice of what the Department now calls disguised self-employment. I think people will be more familiar with another phrase, which is "bogus self-employment".

This is false self-employment, that is, the misclassification by employers of the employment status of people who are, to all intents and purposes, their direct employees in order to enable the employers, in many respects, to avoid their tax and PRSI obligations to the State. It is an insidious practice that encourages a race to the bottom in terms of employment practices in this country, and it needs to be stamped out. We need a legislative response, not simply the maintenance of a code of practice that was introduced in 2007 and is no longer fit for purpose. We need that code of practice encapsulated in our statute law. This Bill intends to do that and it also intends to ensure that those who are depriving the State of the tax and PRSI revenue owed to the State through the misclassification of somebody's categorisation should be treated for what they are - tax cheats.