Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I assure the Acting Chairman that I will not take eight minutes either. I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House. I would not dream to presume to tell him how to deal with workers in his own constituency. I know he is capable of representing their interests. I thank Senator Nash and the Labour Party for bringing this forward. If I have any criticism of it, it is that it did not come forward ten or 20 years ago because the exploitation of workers has been going on for a long time in this country. I recently had a call from a builder's labourer. That is what he described himself as. After his second week of work, he was approached by his employer and told that he was self-employed. I hope Senator Nash is trying to ensure that this Bill does away with that. Not only are unfortunate people left in a situation where they are getting an income which includes a PRSI and tax liability, they finish up in a situation where they are in debt to Revenue and to social welfare because they do not naturally hand the money over but take it as income, because that is what they think it is. I have huge sympathy for those people but it is not just those people in construction. This bogus self-employment has been going on for some time in the corporate sector and multinational sector where employment agencies were engaged to recruit employees for certain manufacturing companies, particularly in the IT industry. The employee, or those who thought they were working for these companies, which I will not name, actually had no rights with the company. They were paying their PAYE and PRSI but had no rights with the company that they were allegedly working for.

I will not delay the House on this other than to say that I am delighted that the Labour Party has brought the Bill forward. I sincerely hope, as Senator Nash hopes, that it moves through the Houses quickly and finds its way into law. We should, as part of this, look to ourselves in the public sector.