Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

If I gave the Senator the wrong impression, I apologise. All our prosecutions are a matter of the best interest of the person who brings the complaint to us. That is the employee who feels he or she is being categorised incorrectly. There is no determination or length of time we will not go back. If I am working for Kellogg's Corn Flakes - and I hope that is not a proper company - for ten or 20 years, that is how far back we will recoup the money, for as long as the employee was misclassified. We will reclassify the person and the company will have no choice but to pay us. The only thing that has changed significantly this year is that we are now doing proactive inspections with the Revenue Commissioners. In August alone, we carried out 1,000 inspections on construction sites nationally. While it seems obvious that there must be many bogus self-employed on those sites, the 1,000 inspections did not achieve a whopping change in classifications. We keep talking about these issues and magnify them as if they are enormous but there is never any evidence about the size of the problem. Let us fix the issues based on fact and actual evidence. Regarding tailored legislation to ensure part-time people get more work or people being maligned and not getting the right social protection and employment rights because of misclassification, let us find out the exact size of the problem so that we do not use a sledgehammer to crack a nut. If we need a sledgehammer, that is fine, but if we do not, let us know what we are talking about and put the right legislation on the books.