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

In response to Senator Craughwell, this is not a new problem. Sometimes when we have this conversation we talk about it as something that has only arisen in recent years. CSO statistics tell us that there has been no increase in self-employment in generations. We have been a nation of entrepreneurial people forever. The issue is that, as the economy changes, employers are finding other mechanisms within the confines of today's world to force people into situations in which they do not want to be. As part of my responsibilities I also have to consider the enormous number of people who are not forced into being in such situations but who are still not self-employed. This Bill has to manage both. It is not just about bogus self-employment but about correct classification of PRSI status based on a statutory code of governance regarding the definition of self-employed as opposed to employed.

To reply to Senator Higgins regarding the reason this section is not appropriate to this Bill, I am not being disingenuous to Senator Nash in any way, shape or form. It is not my Department's role, and therefore does not fall under the remit of my legislation, to determine the tax code. I do not have the ability to instruct the Revenue Commissioners. There is no memorandum of understanding between my Department and the Revenue Commissioners in respect of PAYE. It is none of my business, just as PRSI collection and classification is none of their business.So the penalties about which I am talking that exist in practice today is that anybody found to have willingly and knowingly misclassified somebody for the purpose of avoiding tax will be taken to court by us. The problem we have is that the actual determination of that avoidance of tax in a PRSI context is difficult because most employees or bogusly self-employed people are afraid. Without the co-operation of the person who is being forced into it or who actually wants to be in it because it suits him or her, we have no case to make. This is why the law needs to be changed so that anti-victimisation measures are put into this Bill, my Bill or whatever Bill we are talking about. I agree with Senator Nash that extra powers should be given to the WRC to allow it to effectively manage and support people who find themselves in a position of either being victimised or who are afraid of being victimised if they assert their rights. Those are the anti-victimisation measures I want to bring in and the extra powers I want to give the WRC. Members should be under no illusion. If we find a company that has willfully and knowingly misclassified somebody, we have taken it to court in the past. The difficulty is that we could probably count those cases on one hand because it is so difficult to prove that the company was willfully and knowingly avoiding tax due to the State without the co-operation of the employee.