Self-employed workers (Directive 2010/41/EU and some relevant provisions of the Recast Directive)

• Author: Frances Meenan
• Pages: 63-66

63

8Self-employed workers (Directive 2010/41/EU and some relevant

provisions of the Recast Directive)

8.1General (legal) context

8.1.1Surveys and reports on the specific difficulties of self-employed workers

The key issue that self-employed persons have raised is that during the major recession

of some 10 years ago, the self-employed may have been persons who employed other

staff and paid into the Social Insurance Fund on their behalf as their employer but that

when the crash came, the self-employed employer had no entitlements to Jobseeker’s

Benefit or Allowance. This anomaly is now being corrected.

8.1.2Other issues

The self-employed have increasingly been in receipt of the various benefits and allowances

that the employed are entitled to, based on their pay-related social insurance

contributions. Of course, the key exclusion for women, for example, on maternity leave,

is that they have no entitlement to employ somebody in their absence on leave.

8.1.3Overview of national acts

A self-employed person who personally provides services or a partner in a firm falls within

the scope of the Employment Equality Acts 1998 to 2015.226

8.1.4Political and societal debate and pending legislative proposals

Self-employed workers will be entitled to Jobseeker’s Benefit from year end 2019. As a

major initiative, the self-employed are entitled to the various optical and dental benefits

that other insured workers have received for years.227

8.2Implementation of Directive 2010/41/EU

The Employment Equality Act 1998was amended by the Equality Act 2004 so that self-

employed persons came within the scope of the legislation as required by Article 14 of the

Recast Directive 2006/54/EC. The social protection aspects of the application of Directive

2010/41 are contained in the Social Welfare and Pensions Act 2014 which was signed into

law on 17 July 2014. The Department of Social Protection provides a very useful outline

of entitlements to spouses or civil partners of the self-employed who are doing similar or

ancillary tasks. Such persons must earn over EUR 5 000 per annum and then they must

pay the relevant rate of Pay Related Social Insurance. They will then be entitled to

maternity/adoptive benefits and state pensions when they have the necessary

contributions. Payment commenced in 2014.

8.3Personal scope

8.3.1Scope

The term self-employment is not used in employment legislation but the term to

‘personally’ provide a service is more usually used. Such persons work under a contract

for services. It should be noted that the self-employed technically fall within the scope of

the Employment Equality Acts 1998 to 2015.

226 Self-employed persons, by definition, are persons who do not have a contract of employment but are

working under a contract for services.

227

http://m.welfare.ie/en/Pages/Self-Employed-and-Jobseekers-Supports.aspx.