Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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48. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the position regarding self-employed persons who wish to employ their spouse and pay the normal class A PRSI; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5144/15]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Under social welfare legislation, the social insurance status of spouses working in a family business can vary.

Spouses who are engaged in a business partnership are treated as individual self-employed contributors who are each liable to pay social insurance contributions. In addition spouses, who assist in the business of their self-employed spouse /civil partner performing the same or ancillary tasks and are not a business partner or an employee, can be regarded as a self-employed contributor in their own right.

Alternatively, where a family business is incorporated as a limited company, spouses involved in the business pay PRSI contributions either as employees or as self-employed contributors depending on whether a contract of service exists. In addition where a person is an employee of a partnership in which their spouse/civil partner is a partner, he/she pays PRSI contributions as an employee.

Otherwise, a person employed directly by his/her spouse is not liable to pay PRSI, as this is regarded as an “excepted employment" under social welfare legislation which recognises the practical difficulties in establishing the existence of a genuine employment relationship in such circumstances.