Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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587. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the estimated number of persons considered bogusly self-employed to date in 2019; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39337/19]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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Given the fluid, dynamic nature of the Irish workforce it isn't possible to know the precise number of falsely self-employed workers. 

The most recent CSO Labour Force Survey statistics show that the number of all self-employed individuals in Ireland at the end of June 2019 stands at 317,800.  This represents a decrease over the year of 3.8%.  Of these, 220,900 self-employed persons had no paid employees.  This also reflects a decrease over the year from 227,000 in June 2018. 

As the Deputy is aware, I have reallocated resources in my Department to this issue in order to understand, measure and quantify better the prevalence of false self-employment and to obtain a sectoral analysis of it across the workforce.

In addition, work is ongoing in my Department to detect and tackle the level of false self-employment, whatever that may be.  This includes an ongoing programme of nationwide employer inspections, supplemented by a dedicated unit focused specifically on employment status.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.