Thread by @williamhboney1

For 20 years I've been fighting to expose the scale and cost of #BogusSelfEmployment. For 20 years I've been battling the absolute corruption of civil servants and Ministers which robs citizens of over one billion euro every goddamned year.

2 years ago, I sat with the current

Minister for Social Welfare and explained to her in detail, not just the unlawful actions of the Social Welfare Appeals Office in creating and perpetuating this fraud, but also the prima facie criminality of individual social welfare employees in covering it up. The Minister has

done sweet fuck all since then except allow it all to continue. Indeed, she has gone out of her way to deny that there is large scale bogus self employment. I have witnessed the unlawfulness and the criminality first hand. I have dragged a Social Welfare Inspector into the

Circuit Court and made him admit, on the stand, that he completely falsified evidence and presented it in the Social Welfare Appeals Office in order to keep the fraud going. The current Minister know this, as have all her predecessors for 20 years.

So later today, I'm going to

show u exactly the latest outright dishonesty and corruption not only allowed, but encouraged by this government.

I'm sick to my back teeth of these crooks. Why the fuck am I fighting for State against the corruption of those in lofty positions undermining the state.

Stay tuned

THE FRAUD -

The only route for a person who is incorrectly labeled as Self-Employed is to write to the Scope Section and request an 'insurability of employment' decision.

The Scope Section is an office of the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection directly

answerable to the Minister. Scope Section decisions are legally binding. It's very important to remember that they make legally binding decisions based on all of the available evidence and also on legal principles handed down in various court judgements over the years.

So the individual worker writes to Scope and an investigation begins. This process is usually quite short. Despite repeated opinions that 'insurability of employment' is a complex issue, for the vast majority of cases it is not. A former Inspector of Taxes summed it up pretty

well when he described bogus self employment as an elephant, hard to describe, but you know an elephant when you see one.

The individual worker gets a decision. For the 17 cases I've been involved with in 20 years, ALL of the workers got decisions that they were, in law and

in fact, employees who had been misclassified as self employed by their employers. This is bogus self employment. It is illegal social welfare fraud. Once Scope has made the decision, a 'notice' issues to the criminal employer demanding back payments of PRSI. That is as far as

Scope goes. It has no investigative or enforcement role beyond accepting individual requests for insurability of employment decisions.

Prior to 1992, the employer could appeal the Scope decision directly to the courts or could ask the Minister to reconsider the decision.

Since 1992, the criminal employer no longer has to worry about the courts. Now the employer can appeal the decision to the Social Welfare Appeals Office. The Social Welfare Appeals Office is also an office of the Department of Employment and Social Protection directly

answerable to the Minister. The difference between Scope and the SWAO is that the SWAO is also a quasi legal tribunal. All of its work is carried out in secret and none of it decisions are subject to public examination.

The nub of this fraud is that for more than 20 years

the SWAO has overturned legally binding Scope decisions. It has done so unlawfully using secret test cases it has no legislative authority to make. Secret test cases which create thousands of bogusly self employed workers. It has done so with the full knowledge of Ministers and

top civil servants. It has done so knowing it to be unlawful.

More to come.

To prove what I'm saying, I must show that

a) It is unlawful for the SWAO to have 'Test Cases'
b) That the SWAO does actually have and use its own test cases.

So let's start with 'unlawful'.

Article 15.2.1 of Bunreacht na hÉireann states in quite explicit terms the the sole

and exclusive power of making laws for the State is hereby invested in the Oireachtas, NO OTHER LEGISLATIVE AUTHORITY HAS POWER TO MAKE LAWS FOR THE STATE. That most definitely includes 'test cases' made and used by the Social Welfare Appeals Office.

That there is no

legislative basis for the SWAO to make and use 'test cases' is further highlighted in the case of Henry Denny & Sons Ltd. T/A Kerry Foods -v- The Minister For Social Welfare (1997) which determined -

“Each case must be considered in the light of its particular facts and of the general principles which the courts have developed”

There is no provision within Irish Law to allow for the creation or use of 'test cases' by the Social Welfare Appeals Office. Ergo, they are UNLAWFUL

This is not a 'Theoretical' unlawfulness, it has been the subject of High Court proceedings. In 'John Grace and Quick Service Food Alliance Limited v The Catering Joint Labour Committee, The Labour Court, Ireland and the Attorney General', the unlawfulness of any body other

than the Oireachtas to make law, even in the area of employment, was firmly and unquestionably established matheson.com/news-and-insig…

Again, just so that we're all on the same page, it is UNLAWFUL for the SWAO to create and use its own test cases.

So onto the next point I must prove "That the SWAO does actually have and use its own test cases"

The earliest record I have of a precdential test case I have goes back to 1993. It was cited in a legal submission to the SWAO by an employer in 2000.

The next record comes

directly from the Secretary General of the Department of Social Welfare in a letter to the Public Accounts Committee in which the Secretary General, the highest ranking Civil Servant in the Department of Social Welfare, states:

"A number of representative 'TEST CASES' were selected in 1993/4 for detailed investigation and formal insurability decision"

Again in 2000, another separate precedential TEST CASE was cited in the SWAO by an employer.

Jump forward to 2017 at an Appeal Hearing in the SWAO,

where the Appeals Officer stated his intention to use approx 12 separate cases as 1 single 'TEST CASE'.

On the 9th of January this year, the Social Welfare Office stated "On occasion over the years an approach of having 'TEST CASES' has been taken or considered by the SWAO".

On numerous occasions over the past 20 years, the Social Welfare Appeals Office has admitted in writing that it has created and used 'TEST CASES'.

Now bring these two factors together, THE SWAO CREATES AND USES ITS OWN TEST CASES, IT IS UNLAWFUL FOR THE SWAO TO CREATE AND USE

ITS OWN TEST CASES.

Now we get to the current downright despicable and dishonest communication from the SWAO where they blatantly lie about having test cases despite numerous admissions that they do have and use test cases.

Stay tuned.

On the 17 Dec 2018, I emailed the SWAO and requested:

"access to any and all precedential decisions of the SWAO regarding insurability of employment. I cite Opesyitan & ors -v- Refugee Appeals Tribunal & ors [2006] IESC 53 (26 July as precedent for accessing this information"

The reason I was looking for access to precedential test cases is because I'm helping another worker, @ShantiPixie, who received a Scope decision that she was an employee not self employed as her employer had claimed for many years. The employer was allowed to appeal this

Scope decision without ever providing reasons for appeal. Now, we know from their own admissions, that the SWAO has and uses its own precedential test cases, I was looking for those cases so that we could have a level playing field in the SWAO, so that all parties were using the

same precedents. It is manifestly unfair that the SWAO has unlawful secret test cases and precedents that other parties to an appeal are not given access to.

On the 20th of December 2018, the SWAO DENIED that it created or used its own secret test cases. On the same day, I

replied and enclosed the full letter from the Secretary General to the Public Accounts Committee clearly admitting that the SWAO creates and uses its own test cases.

On the 9th of January 2019, the SWAO admitted in writing -

"An approach of having TEST CASES has been taken or considered by the Social Welfare Appeals Office.

This is unequivocal, this is proven fact, the Social Welfare Appeals Office has created and uses its own secret TEST CASES.

I replied to the SWAO and pointed out that despite

admitting that they have and use their own secret test cases, they had not supplied them to me nor to any other worker who has ever had to attend at an appeal.

Two weeks ago I was informed by the SWAO that my request for access to these unlawful secret test cases was sent for

legal opinion by the Assistant Chief Appeals Office. For 107 days I waited for the test cases, the unlawful test cases. My request wasn't about precedents nor test cases, it’s just about having access to relevant previous cases so that there is consistency, this applies equally

to SWAO as refugee appeals. Important rights are at stake for the employee and it is important that the general principle in Opesyitan & ors -v- Refugee Appeals Tribunal & ors [2006] IESC 53 is respected with release of the secret test cases. It is manifestly unfair that the

SWAO withholds these test cases.

More to follow

Late yesterday evening, an email was sent to me from the SWAO. In any other walk of life, except the Civil Service, this reply would be considered gross and unquestionable misconduct leading to immediate dismissal. But because this is the Civil Service, the crooked fuckers

get to lie through their teeth, blatant and provable lies, condoned all the way to the top of the political tree in the Department of Social Protection. So let's start with the autopsy of the email -

The first part below

Despite claiming to take each case on its own merits, the SWAO then blatantly contradicts its self with

"On very few occasions over the years an approach of SAMPLE CASES has been taken by the Appeals Office"

What kind of boloxogy is 'Sample Cases'?

The are, as admitted by

the very highest civil servants in the Department, TEST CASES not fucking SAMPLE CASES. These test cases have been used to misclassify thousands of workers as self employed.

Next we look at the statement "with the agreement of all parties to the appeal".

NEWSFLASH - you cannot

consent to an unlawful/illegal/unconstitutional agreement, no more than you can get away with murder by claiming that the victim agreed to be murdered. This utterly pathetic excuse was first proffered by the Minister @ReginaDo in the Irish Times last week -

@ReginaDo The Minister is claiming that a legally binding decision of the Scope Section was overturned by the Social Welfare Appeals Office because there was 'consent' to ignore the precedents and case law handed down by the courts over the years. This, my friends, is wholesale corruption

@ReginaDo right in your faces. Employment status is NEVER a matter of choice, one must fit the legal criteria and it's not up to a minister nor anybody else to ignore the law by 'consent'.

I'd just like to add that I have intimate knowledge of one of these test cases and there was

@ReginaDo absolutely no fucking consent from workers. The workers were threatened, lied to and excluded from the 'consent' which labeled them as self employed employees. The Minister is not telling the truth.

In this part of the email, the SWAO deliberately misconstrues the general principle in Opesyitan & ors -v- Refugee Appeals Tribunal & ors [2006] IESC 53. This is a very serious matter, it is inconceivable that this is the 'Legal Advice' received by the SWAO.

The general

principle in Opesyitan & ors -v- Refugee Appeals Tribunal & ors is about having access to relevant previous cases so that there is consistency. As I have shown in this thread, there are test cases in the SWAO and workers do not have access to them.

Finally (You'll be glad to hear), I come to the most corrupt and dishonest part of the SWAO email.

"There is no database of Appeal's Officers Decisions"

I never fucking said there was, I say there should be. There are TEST CASES, that is a fact, and it doesn't matter whether

they are in a database, in a file, a notebook or tattooed on the Chief Appeals Officers arse, the Social Welfare Appeals Office has them and has, for more than 20 years, denied workers access to them.

The final lie from the SWAO is -

"Social welfare appeal decisions are individual decisions which are determined on their particular facts and which do not form binding precedent"

But in the very same email the SWAO admits that it does create and use TEST CASES, test cases which have been used to label many

thousands of workers as self employed. Workers who have never appeared at an appeal nor sought a scope decision. Workers who are denied natural justice, denied a right to speak for themselves. They are labeled 'self-employed' based on one single unlawful test case.

Despite

admitting, even in this most dishonest email, that they do create and use secret test cases, the SWAO is still denying access to these secret test cases.

The true factual position is that the SWAO is and has acted unlawfully to deny thousands of workers employee rights and at

same time has facilitated welfare cheating employers to evade their PRSI obligations. There is absolutely no way a worker can have a fair hearing in the SWAO.

This is FACT.

Ends.

@threadreaderapp roll out please.