Welfare Decision On Lucan Site Raises\u00a0 Issues Says Crowe<\/p>\n
Dublin South West representative Se\u00e1n Crowe TD has claimed that a
\nlandmark decision by the Department of Social Protection that JJ
\nRattigan workers involved in the construction of a Department of
\nEducation school in the Kishoge site in Lucan are employees rather
\nthan self-employed is a welcome development\u00a0 but raises other serious
\nquestions regarding state policy in this area of employment.<\/p>\n
Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said<\/p>\n
\u201cFor a long time the small\u00a0 amount of available\u00a0 jobs for workers in
\nthe construction sector was in the building of schools and campuses
\nauthorised by the Department of Education.<\/p>\n
\u201cBuilding workers continually claim that the vast majority of these
\njobs were filled by the \u2018black economy\u2019 or by workers having to take
\nthe self-employed, sub-contractor route.<\/p>\n
\u201cCurrently it is estimated that there are 365,000 RTCs (Relevent
\nContract Tax)\u00a0 or Subcontractor certificates in the state and it is
\nreasonable to assume that many of them, if not the majority of them are
\nproduced for bogus reasons.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have the crazy situation that now exists where the bulk of the
\nwork is being stimulated by state contracts and for some bizarre
\nreasons various state entitiesare turning a blind eye to contractors
\nsubletting work out to contractors who ignore and break employment
\nlaws \u2018willy nilly\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cWorkers who should be employed directly in the traditional way are
\nbeing forced into subcontracting by employers, to allow contractors
\nshirk their responsibilities such as the minimum wage, employer PRSI,
\nillness benefit and jobseekers benefit.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the Kishoge Building site in Lucan it is reported that workers
\nwere being paid a miserly \u20ac5 an hour.<\/p>\n
\u201cRCTs are being so flagrantly abused that some recruitment agencies
\nactually advertise that normal workers entitlements do not apply.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome within the Department of Social Protection even go as far to
\nadmit that they cannot police the current system which encourages
\nfraud, tax defaulting, and rogue employers. The Department of
\nEducation seem happy to get the schools and campuses built and
\ndelivered regardless of the social cost.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe chaos in which the Irish construction industry is in with regards
\nto widespread bogus self-employment has serious consequences for
\nworkers and legitimate employers who are being priced out of
\ncontracts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWorkers are left high and dry with regards to basic workers\u2019 rights,
\nthe state is also cheated out of considerable amounts of tax and PRSI
\nand decent employers who employ directly have a huge competitive
\ndisadvantage over\u00a0 these cowboy and \u2018fly by night\u2019 builders.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government and its various Departments are complicit in allowing
\nthese illegal activities expand and multiply across the construction
\nsector.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe tax authorities and Department of Social and Family Affairs seem
\nslow to respond to workers and their representatives that claim there
\nis widespread abuse occurring in the sector.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Department of Education would appear to be content to ignore what
\nis happening on educational sites appearing powerless to prevent and
\nstop the practice of forced and bogus sub-contracting.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government need to introduce urgent regulation to ensure that
\ndirect employment is the default position not the norm for workers in
\nthe construction industry. There also needs to be greater penalties
\nput into place where a person is falsely reported as self-employed and
\nthe practice of state tenders need to put under greater controls and
\nprohibit abuse of bogus self-employment practices\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Welfare Decision On Lucan Site Raises\u00a0 Issues Says Crowe Dublin South West representative Se\u00e1n Crowe TD has claimed that a landmark decision by the Department of Social Protection that JJ Rattigan workers involved in the construction of a Department of Education school in the Kishoge site in Lucan are employees rather than self-employed is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2295"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2296,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2295\/revisions\/2296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}