The programme for Government contains several commitments to support the self-employed. I want to ask about those forced into false self-employment. Thousands of people across the country are being forced into bogus self-employment rather than being given proper contracts of employment. This is happening in construction, in the media and in the growing gig economy in a variety of sectors. The problem is resulting in significant losses of employment contributions to the PRSI system, and workers are suffering loss of rights including sick pay, redundancy entitlements and so on. The taxpayer has been deprived of the PRSI payments employers should be paying and my colleague, Senator Ged Nash, published a Bill yesterday to outlaw false self-employment, a Bill which has garnered a great deal of support from across the trade union movement. When will the Government legislate in this area? When will the Government publish the report on bogus self-employment that was commissioned more than two years ago by the then Minister, Deputy Burton?

The report is currently being looked at by my Department and I hope to have it published very soon.

This side of Christmas?

I genuinely hope so. It is being worked on at the moment with a view to deciding what the next steps are between my Department and the Revenue Commissioners to address the issues outlined by the Deputy. There is a section dealing with this area in my Department, known as Scope, and there will be a campaign around its activities in the new year to let people know exactly what their entitlements are and what avenues are available to them to self-determine or get an independent adjudicator to look at their case if they feel they are not really self-employed. I hope to issue the report sooner rather than later.