The Government has rejected allegations that some of the workers on the building site of the new offices for Leinster House had been required to breach tax and social welfare codes by a sub-contractor on the site.
The Minister of State for Finance, Mr Martin Cullen, said the unofficial picket outside the site had nothing to do with the building of offices for Leinster House.
"I understand that these pickets, who comprised workers who were not from the Oireachtas site, were protesting at the practice of sub-contracting within the construction industry generally."
The issue was raised on the adjournment by Mr Tommy Broughan (Lab, Dublin North East) who said abuses were occurring in the wider construction industry where rogue contractors forced workers to become subcontractors to pay their own tax and PRSI.
Mr Cullen said the issue had been raised a number of times in the past 18 months. The Revenue Commissioners had completed a State-wide campaign to ensure that declarations made by principal contractors and sub-contractors represented the true situation.
He said more than 7,000 contracts were visited. No problems were found in 52 per cent of cases. Of the balance 76 per cent agreed with Revenue rulings. "The remainder are subject to different aspects of follow-up action."
