Sir, – Your interpretation of the OECD position (Editorial, September 18th) that Ireland should "move sooner or later to end abusive tax avoidance" by multinationals should equally apply to ending our tolerance of mechanisms and regulatory interpretations that support social dumping on a continental scale.
In 2009, the Revenue Commissioners closed one loophole preventing the abuse of sole trader status as an acceptable means of engaging pilots in the Irish aviation industry. Unfortunately, the exploitation of pilots continued in an evolved model, requiring them to become directors of limited companies for no obvious benefit to the pilots themselves.
Ireland’s apparent tolerance for such “clever” arrangements brings our national good name further into disrepute. Ireland is increasingly seen as a peddler of cheap employment practices in the service of corporate engorgement.
Given its potential to destroy the lives of individual workers and to undermine the social fabric of society, it is past time to review the export of abusive social and employment practices from Ireland, as much as it is time to curb the abusive tax avoidance schemes that the OECD has so clearly identified. – Yours, etc,
EVAN CULLEN,
President,
Irish Airline
Pilots’ Association,
Corballis Park,
Dublin Airport.