Mattie McGrath: Auto-enrolment will 'crucify' small employers

Can you follow that? I don't know if there's any farm relief in Cary. I know they won't be there to carve the cows. And if you're twins, then help us all get them. No, I'm delighted to be able to speak on this tonight. But I have concerns. And I have to declare, I suppose, that I am a board member of business that implies a considerable number of people. And there are not enough of us in this chamber that has helped by, I know you are, Clowncola, Deputy Hilly Ways for a long time, and I am since 1982. And there's not enough of us in this chamber. Obviously, if there was, this legislation wouldn't be coming true in droves and heaps and health and safety and everything else. Would there be any fair and reasonable assessment as to the impact it's having on employers? I'm all for a fair day's wages, for a fair day's pay. And we have great employees and we have a great relationship. If I want to salute them, without them, I, company, and the company, wouldn't be able to do anything, wouldn't function. But we have to have fairness here. And some consideration here for the small employers. Because they're the backbone of the country. And I have some comments here, but I think one to say about this as well, and I fully agree with them. But the small men, they have no organisation to represent them. Have nobody, and they really just alluded to it, they have to organise all the work and make sure the money's in the bank to pay, unfortunately, it used to be Friday evening, but now it's Wednesday. I have company anywhere, bank transfers. So, it's so important, in the rural land especially, and in urban land, the small businesses are support. It's so important. We're all in this together. But this auto-enrolment is great. Sounds great. But the penalties, and the proof of the pudding is in the eating. And we are hitting towards Christmas, and hopefully we'll have a bit of Christmas pudding, and a bit of custard. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating. And the pain of this, while it might be small, it goes incrementally up every year. And the penalties, I looked at the penalties, it's £50,000 in jail. Every letter, I think, that businesses get now from Revenue, does the jail teller met into it. That's fine for the rogues and the people that have to deal with cab and all, but for the ordinary business person that's working hard, and they're managed, whether they be one implied, or ten implied, or five implied, or 15, or 20, or 30, or 40. I think Enterprise Ireland and other companies, and IBEC, won't talk to you unless you have 50 or more employees. But just a lot of employees. That's a lot of money over Wednesday. and the PSI and the insurance schemes and all that goes with it. And Deputy Hillary also alluded to the new paternity leave and the domestic leave now as well. They're all grant. And some are needed. Some people need them, I'm not saying that, but they all have a cumulative, huge impact on the employer and on the employer's ability to stay going, keep the ship afloat. Because insurance costs, electricity costs, oil costs, carbon tax, that's the biggest fake that was ever imposed in this house that we can't even debate it for 10 years. It's just added every year of the budget as a measure comes in, carbon tax. And then we find, when I ask the Taoiseach, about a couple hundred million, 680 million, I think, it didn't go into where it's supposed to go at all. No, it's gone off in the piggyback for some other nice lucrative schemes. And I'm sick to the teeth now, seeing, I met people today talking about the CPOs, and sorry for diverging a small bit, but I'm sick to the teeth of all these grand active travel schemes. And we can't get a shell into fixing a bridge or maintain a road or take out a bad bend. And engineers and water accounts and tip accounts are telling me this, money for active travel, for tomfoolery schemes, putting cycle lanes along a couple of hundred years of a road with what they've done in my area, starting here and finishing there and going nowhere, cycling and walking lanes and we can't have money to improve low-cost accident schemes and very important life-saving measures. They showed me a cantilever part of that greenway today, it's your own county, I think, Minister, I could be wrong, I've gone the way, where they put this massive cantilever walkway, costing, I said, billions, not millions. And they obviously have money for this and they're proposing it. I'm sure the architects got millions already to design it. We were bridging at Finan, this closed, one-way system for the last 12, 13 years and we have to have more consultants reports and engage with the price of the bridge spent on it. And now we have a lovely design for a footbridge, a sandalones footbridge, but it's going to cost seven and a half million. If we spent two million on the bridge the first day, it would have been repaired. And I've said many times, I hate saying this, the nice of the flood, I was on the bridge or beside it when they closed the bridge for the fear to the pity it didn't go on the flood that night we'd have a new bridge long, long ago. But I'm, I'm building a small bit there, but that's the cumulative impact and all these grandios schemes as you have money for things that you don't need it at all. The cost burden on employers and employers will also include mandatory contributions starting at 1.5% gross salary, gross salary, rising to 6% after over 10 years, which I'm saying that SMEs, you know, operating on tight margins are going to be crucified. Crucified. And that's the simple fact that they're only barely surviving. They're nearly underwater as it is with so many increased costs. The administrative capacity highlights ongoing compliance requirements such as monitoring employee eligibility, managing opt-outs and non-enrolments and updating payroll systems. Who's going to do that in a small business? It's my bank, I don't know, I'm going to agree. And the bankers are worn out and tired because we don't have the staff like they have in the departments to pass it on to this secretary and that secretary or the county council or whatever. It's single man and a woman who are running the business of their own and they don't have the and they're nearly fatigued minister with the amount of red tape and a lot of baloney just coming down on top of them. I have no talk now for anyone who doesn't want to have insurance and doesn't look after the workers to make sure they're health and safety but the amount of bucket loads that's been fired on them and a lot of it is nonsensical. An awful lot of it is nonsensical but it's making good jobs for the gang, the new brigade that we have going around the fellas hitting safety offers and all these inspectors and most of them couldn't drive a machine if you had given the whole of Ireland and they could tell you how to drive an operator's safety. It's pure nonsense. And I've said here about NERA many times the National Employees' Rights Association they should be changed to a supporting organization especially after the last recession we had a bit of a boom but now we're tightened up seriously again and heading into very dark times and choppy waters. There needs to be changed to National Employers support people because if we haven't the employers we won't have the jobs. It's as simple as it gets dark this evening at 5 o'clock and it gets daylight in the morning at 7 o'clock. So simple as that and we're not going to have the employers we don't nurture them and mind them and we haven't nurtured them for decades. we have put more paperwork on top of them we're smothering with it. Paper after paperwork after paper work. So as I said I mentioned earlier about the IBEC and business organization like that have said the support principle of the authoring role because they do but emphasizes the need for alignment with other cost pressures that's what I'm talking about. The costs couldn't be the worst time and it couldn't be the worst time than it's coming in now because things are very very tight matters are very tight because you have no record or account of the insurance costs and the claims. We've talked about reports and goodness knows Minister we have offices now and our agency is there for everything but there's useless tootless and fruitless I call them all these bodies that are supposed to be looking after the costs to protect the consumers. They're not protecting the consumers they're protecting themselves they have the black breast pat up in the wall they have the nice office furniture big deck chair sorry office chair and a fine fine big job and a team under them. Costing a fortune neither I think have six offices all over the country the finest of offices Minister and many other look we know about all the NGOs they're milking this country high and dry but it's the same with these so-called watchdogs that we're setting up so many would set up another one your teacher has set up more investigations and everything else then he's had hot dinners over his time as Minister and as Taoiseach and they're doing nothing only pushing paper the vast majority of them as I said aren't fit for purpose jobs for the boys and the most of them are retired people out of here or out of civil service and persecuting as I said people who want to add enablers who want to get the work done who want to employ themselves first of all then apply people along and grow their business with good relationship with their employees and not to be lectured and told with legislation after legislation without any pre-legislative scrutiny even if we have that here and as a criticism of my colleagues there's not enough self-implied people in this house because they haven't the time not the energy to go for it they're not too busy working but they're not we have plenty solicitors barristers some doctors and whatever else professional people but we haven't any self-implied people and sign us on we're out of kilter with the ordinary working small business and if you're out of kilter with the small business people you're out of kilter with their employees because you push them out of existence with the people on the social welfare and where's that going to get us so I'm talking here and it's 10 years too late maybe 15 years too late what I'm saying it's just gone beyond a joke and I'm saying in the name of the dead generations in the name of future generations that we cry hard here look at what we're doing to imply us and to equally support them rather than persecuting them Goera maha Goera maha Goera maha Goera maha Goera maha Goera maha