Catherine Ardagh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I too join in welcome Mary Leyden and her guests to the Gallery. I hope they have a lovely day.

I thank the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection for introducing this Bill in this House. As a small business owner since 2006 and as a Fianna Fáil Senator I am very happy to support this Bill, the purpose of which is to provide for the introduction of a new social insurance scheme, jobseeker's benefit, which will be payable as the Minister said, to individuals who lose their self employment and have the required number of PRSI contributions to qualify for the payment.

Fianna Fáil has consistently supported extending on a phased and on a voluntary basis a full range of social protection supports to self-employed PRSI contributors as part of our commitment to foster an entrepreneurial culture as well as enhancing social solidarity. As part of the arrangement to facilitate the formation of a minority Government, Fianna Fáil extracted policy commitments under the confidence and supply arrangement to support entrepreneurs and the self-employed. Fianna Fail therefore supports this Bill and the creation of a social welfare safety net for the self-employed. However it is imperative that the Government ensures the legislation is enacted as soon as feasible and efforts continue to remove the systematic discrimination against the self-employed. As the Minister stated, small businesses and self-employed people are the backbone of our economy. There are currently nearly 250,000 small and medium sized businesses in this country, which account for more than 99% of all actual businesses, according to the CSO. Many hurdles are faced on a daily basis by job creators who keep delivering for their communities. The self-employed pay higher income tax and PRSI rates than those they employ while up until this point there has been no equivalent social protection support if the business failed. This treatment has crippled small businesses and low income earning self-employed persons who are trying to meet their financial responsibilities every week. Their endeavours need to be rewarded.

I am a solicitor in practice but I collect more money for the Government each year by way of taxes - I collect stamp duty, VAT, household charge, local property tax, but sometimes one thinks of oneself as a tax collector rather than a contributor. I am glad to see something is being given back to the self-employed because the are the people who put themselves out on a limb, take the huge risks and ultimately employ other people and give back to communities. It is the small businesses around the country in small villages who really get things going. Many small rural and urban communities are only running and viable because of the small businesses that are in the vicinity. I work in Crumlin village and Tesco and An Post are the two largest businesses in the area, the rest are small businesses ranging from the bike shop, the florist, hairdressers, charity shops. It is really important that they are acknowledged and their work for the community is rewarded. Fianna Fáil has consistently supported the extending on a phased and voluntary basis the full range of social protections. As part of the agreement to facilitate the minority Government, Fianna Fail looked for commitments for the self-employed. We have succeeded in getting dental and optical benefits extended to the self-employed, which I welcome and I thank the Minister for doing that, while PRSI contributors are now eligible to qualify for the invalidity pension. It is essential that the Minister continues to eliminate systematic discrimination against the self-employed. The Fine Gael led Government has failed to meet its commitment under the programme for Government for full equalisation with the PAYE tax credit by 2018. I hope that is something the Minister can examine.

Fianna Fáil welcomes the Bill and it is essential that more is done to tackle the issue of bogus self employment. Such situations arise where a working relationship is misclassified as a contract for services or a commercial agreement when it should be considered a contract of service or a contract of employment. In instances where people are forced to register as self-employed it circumvents basic employee rights in respect of holiday pay, sick pay and pension contributions and deprives the State of PRSI revenue. The practice needs to be stamped out to protect workers and the State finances. I hope this legislation does not have a knock on effect of increasing situations of bogus self employment but I am sure the Department is tackling it to ensure bogus self employment is eradicated.