Home tuition employment status
Deputy Colm Burke said home tutors are wrongly treated as self-employed, with PRSI and summer-pay issues despite effectively working for the Department. The Tánaiste said the scheme is more complex and that the parents or guardians engage the tutors, not the Department.
I have raised this matter previously and I raise it again. It is about the problems being encountered by teachers who provide home tuition because they are treated as self-employed by the Department. Even though the Department pays them, it deducts the tax. They are in category S in relation to PRSI and they have very little access to other services. They do not get paid during the summer months yet they are not allowed to enter into arrangements to provide tuition during the summer months. These people are not subcontractors; they are employees of the Department. We have already seen a number of State organisations getting caught over the fact that they were treating people as subcontractors who should have been treated as employees. Those who are providing home tuition are regulated. They cannot do any more hours than any teacher in a school can do and they have the same regulations. Therefore, they should be treated as employees.
Comment on this
It is a bit more complex than that. The home tuition grant scheme provides funding towards the provision of compensatory educational services for children who, for a number of specific reasons, are unable to attend school. This could be due to illness or certain conditions. By nature, it is a short-term intervention. Some of the providers could be more long term, some are more short term. They might get a permanent job the following year, for example. In the first instance, the home tutors are engaged by the parents and the guardian of the child who is to receive the tuition. Therefore, the tutor actually has no contractual relationship with the Department of Education. The Revenue Commissioners have instructed that payments under the home tuition grant scheme are subject to statutory deductions at source. In order to facilitate parents, the Department of Education acts solely as payroll agents on behalf of the parents and the guardian to ease administration. The Department of Social Protection has determined that home tutors are engaged under contracts for service and are therefore self-employed and subject to PRSI class S. It is the various Departments conspiring that is creating a significant challenge.