Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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581. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the number of investigations into employment status and false employment carried out by social welfare inspectors in 2018, 2019, 2020 and to date in 2021; the sectors concerned; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [10261/21]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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My Department’s Social Welfare Inspectors, including members of the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) and the Employment Status Investigation Unit (ESIU), carry out employer investigations as part of their duties to ensure compliance with PRSI regulations.

The ESIU is a team established in mid-2019. In contrast to other inspectors who check for and pursue compliance across social welfare schemes and regulations, this team is specifically dedicated to the question of 'employment status' and the detection and investigation of 'false self-employment'.

Now numbering five inspectors, the ESIU proactively targets employers and sectors for the purpose of inspection and compliance, and also responds to individual requests for investigations from a range of customers, including workers, employers, other areas of the Department and the Revenue Commissioners.

Since it began its operations in Q4 2019, the ESIU has carried out employment status investigations in a wide range of sectors, including the construction, meat processing, retail, fitness and language training sectors. To date, 421 companies have been examined, leading to 205 full employment status investigations. A sectoral breakdown is provided in Table 2 below.

Although interrupted by Covid, investigations completed by the ESIU to date have resulted in PRSI savings of approximately €279,300.

Table 1 below shows the number of employer investigations carried out by departmental inspectors for the years in question. Employer investigations concern PRSI compliance generally and are not directly focused on the very specific question of 'employment status'. Table 2, therefore, deals specifically with the work of ESIU, which focuses on that issue. In this the 2021 figures are carry-overs from investigations commenced in 2020 which is why there are no new company figures to date.

Table 1 Employer investigations carried out by all Social Welfare Inspectors/SIU

Table 2 Employment status investigations carried out by the Employment Status Investigation Unit

I trust this clarifies matters for the Deputy.