Bogus self-employment report
Deputy Ó Broin pressed for an update on a report into bogus self-employment and worker exploitation in construction. The Taoiseach said the report would be published soon and indicated the problem existed, though perhaps not on the scale suggested.
The programme for Government pledges to increase capital investment in infrastructure. Obviously, this is very good news for the construction industry but it is not so much good news for workers on low pay who are trapped in bogus subcontracts. Both in March and July of this year I asked during Questions on Promised Legislation for the then Taoiseach to give us an update on the report that was being led by the Department of Finance and which formally involved his own Department. Three months on, we have no update. Today, I received an anonymised letter from a construction worker in my constituency who is working on a site in Clondalkin and is being paid below the statutory wage. Because he has been forced into a bogus subcontract, he is not able to benefit from proper PRSI contributions. My question is simple. When will that report be published and, crucially, when will the Government introduce the necessary legislation to protect workers and taxpayers and abolish bogus subcontracting in the construction industry?
Comment on this
I understand from the Minister, Deputy Regina Doherty, that the report will be published in the near future although I do not have an exact date for it. It indicates that bogus self-employment is a real issue but perhaps not on the scale that people may have previously thought. That, of course, is evidenced by the fact the number of people in self-employment has not increased dramatically but has increased in line with general employment, so the view that a huge number of people are being pushed into self-employment is not supported by the statistics. That is not to say it does not happen on occasion.
To respond to something else the Deputy said, I do not agree with him that an increase in capital investment is solely good for the construction industry. Let us not forget what that increase in capital investment is - it is more schools for kids to go to, more hospitals for patients to use and more roads to get us to work and to home. I am disappointed that a Deputy of this House should be pejorative about capital investment in that way.