Latest news with #employment
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Analyst reboots Facebook parent stock price target on AI investments
Analyst reboots Facebook parent stock price target on AI investments originally appeared on TheStreet. Afraid about losing your job to artificial intelligence? You're not alone. More than half of the people responding to a Pew Research Center survey said they were worried about the future impact of AI use in the workplace, and 32% think it will lead to fewer job opportunities for them in the long run. 💵💰Don't miss the move: Subscribe to TheStreet's free daily newsletter 💰 Only 6% of workers queried in the survey of 5,273 employed U.S. adults said workplace AI use will lead to more job opportunities for them in the long run. About a third said it will lead to fewer opportunities for them, and 31% say it will not make much difference. It's not surprising that people are concerned about their careers. A McKinsey report projects that by 2030, 30% of current U.S. jobs could be automated, with 60% significantly altered by AI tools. Mark Zuckerberg has a different point of view. "I tend to think that for at least the foreseeable future, this is going to lead towards more demand for people doing work not less now,' the chairman and CEO of Facebook parent Meta Platforms () said in recent interview. "The common belief is that all the jobs are going to go away and actually that has not really been how the history of technology has worked," he added. "You can create things that take away 90% of the work and that leads you to want more people, not less." Meta has certainly been busying expanding its AI capabilities. More Tech Stocks: Amazon tries to make AI great again (or maybe for the first time) Veteran portfolio manager raises eyebrows with latest Meta Platforms move Google plans major AI shift after Meta's surprising $14 billion move The social media giant is reportedly in talks to acquire voice AI platform PlayAI, according to Bloomberg, which could help Meta bring more voice features to its AI assistant and its smartglasses. PlayAI creates AI-powered voice features with the goal of being as 'responsive as a conversation between two people,' according to a company blog post Meta's artificial intelligence assistant has one billion monthly active users across the company's family of apps, Zuckerberg said at the company's May 28 annual shareholder meeting. He noted that the 'focus for this year is deepening the experience and making Meta AI the leading personal AI with an emphasis on personalization, voice conversations and entertainment,' In April, the company said it was launching a stand-alone artificial intelligence app and going head-to-head with ChatGPT maker OpenAI. And during Meta's first quarter earnings call, Zuckerberg said that "the major theme right now of course is how AI is transforming everything we do." "The first opportunity is improved advertising," he told analysts. "Our goal is to make it so that any business can basically tell us what objective they're trying to achieve -- like selling something or getting a new customer -- and how much they're willing to pay for each result, and then we just do the rest." Zuckerberg said businesses used to have to generate their own ad creative and define what audiences they wanted to reach, but "AI has already made us better at targeting and finding the audiences that will be interested in their product than many businesses are themselves, and that keeps improving." "And now AI is generating better creative options for many businesses as well. I think that this is really redefining what advertising is into an AI agent that delivers measurable business results at scale," he said."And if we deliver on this vision, then over the coming years I think that the increased productivity from AI will make advertising a meaningfully larger share of global GDP than it is today," The total number of ad impressions served across Meta's services increased 5% and the average price per ad increased 10%. Susan Li, Meta's Chief Financial Officer, said during the call that Meta has invested for many years and continues to invest in driving ad performance improvements, adding that "year-over-year conversion growth remains strong." "For us, we really believe, first and foremost, that advertising is a relative performance game," Li said. "That's especially important for us because the vast majority of our business is direct response advertising." Piper Sandler cited Meta's advertising efforts in a June 27 research note. The firm boosted its price target on the company to $808 from $650 and kept an overweight rating on the shares, according to The Fly. Meta's investments in AI are transforming its advertising technology, driving higher ad performance, conversion rates, and return on ad spend, Piper said. New tools like AI models GEM, Andromeda, and Lattice, which are responsible for selecting and recommending ads displayed on Facebook, Instagram and Threads, can drive revenue growth in the mid-teens for multiple years, the firm said. Piper Sandler, which says Meta is a new Top Large Cap Pick, adds that higher ad pricing is being driven by better conversion, and not lower reboots Facebook parent stock price target on AI investments first appeared on TheStreet on Jun 27, 2025 This story was originally reported by TheStreet on Jun 27, 2025, where it first appeared. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
BBC News
2 hours ago
- Business
- BBC News
Benefits U-turn raises questions about Labour's long-term plan
About a quarter of the working age population - those aged 16 to 64 - do not currently have a job. Caring responsibilities and ill health are the most common reasons given by those who would like a four-year mandate and a towering majority, Labour might have been expected to have invested in a long-term plan to help those who are sick get back into the workforce, at least part-time. It may have cost up front, but in the future it could have delivered big its determination to avoid a repeat of the Liz Truss mini-budget led them to target big savings quickly - but it ended up causing perhaps even more trouble, with the government performing a spectacular U-turn to avoid a mass Labour raises significant questions, not just about how this year-old government manages its affairs day to day, but if its overall strategy to renew the country is on track. Long-term reform vs short-term savings The government was adamant that its "welfare reform" changes - announced in March's Green Paper - were designed to get people back to bulk of planned savings came from tightening the eligibility for Personal Independence Payments (Pip), which are paid to support people who face extra costs due to disability, regardless of whether or not they are in work. Independent experts questioned whether more of the savings should have been redeployed to help people with ill health ease back in to the workforce, for example part time. That could mean support such as potential employer subsidies - especially to help get younger people into work and pay taxes, rather than claim benefits long term. It could also help fill jobs - a win win for rebels argued that the upfront cuts were aimed at filling a Budget hole against the Chancellor's self imposed borrowing rules. Their central criticism was that this was an emergency cost-cutting is true that the Chancellor's Budget numbers were blown off course by higher borrowing costs, such as those emanating from US President Donald Trump's shock tariffs, so she bridged the borrowing gap with these cuts. The welfare reform plan to save £5bn a year by 2029-30 helped Chancellor Rachel Reeves meet her "non negotiable" borrowing rules. Indeed when the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), which monitors the spending plans, said they would not in fact raise enough money, Reeves announced more welfare cuts on the day of the Spring main point was to raise money to help close the gap in the Budget tell me that the welfare reform plan was in fact brought forward for this purpose. But this was still not a full programme of welfare reform designed to deal with a structural issue of rising health-related claims. 'Top slicing never works' The former Conservative Welfare Secretary Iain Duncan Smith resigned as work and pensions secretary almost ten years ago, saying a similar plan to cut disability benefits was "indefensible".He says the cuts should have formed part of "a wider process" of finding the best way to focus resources on those most in need."Top slicing never works," he says of plans to extract savings from the welfare budget without its heart the problem is perceived to be that the current welfare structure has become overly binary, failing to accommodate a growing demographic who should be able to do at least a bit of work. This rigidity - what ministers refer to as a "hard boundary" - inadvertently pushes individuals towards declaring complete unfitness for work, and can lead to total dependence on welfare, particularly universal credit health (UC Health), rather than facilitating a gradual transition back into some leading experts this is, in fact, the biggest cause of the increase in health-related welfare claims. The pandemic may have accelerated the trend, but it started a decade proportion of working age people claiming incapacity benefit had fallen well below 5% in 2015, now it's 7%.The pandemic period exacerbated the rise as ill health rose and many claims were agreed without face-to-face meetings. These claims were also increasingly related to mental ill health. One former minister, who did not wanted to be named, said the system had effectively broken down."The real trouble is people are learning to game the Pip questionnaire with help from internet sites," he says. "It's pretty straightforward to answer the questions in a way that gets the points."As he puts it, the UK is "at the extreme of paying people for being disabled" with people getting money rather than equipment such as wheelchairs as occurs in other most kinds of mental ill health, in kind support, such as therapies, would make more sense than cash transfers, he some disability campaigners have said that being offered vouchers instead of cash payments and thereby removing people's automony over spending, is "an insult" and "dangerous". These pressures can be seen in the nature of the compromise planned cuts to Pip payments will now only apply to new claimants from November next year, sparing 370,000 current claimants out of the 800,000 expected to be affected by the Meg Hillier, Labour MP and chair of the Commons Treasury committee, along with other rebels, have also pointed out that the application of the new four-point threshold for Pip payments will be designed together with disability is a fair assumption that this so called "co-production" may enable more future claimants to retain this universal credit, the government had planned to freeze the higher rate for existing health-related claimants but the payments will now rise in line with inflation. And for future claimants of universal credit, the most severe cases will be spared from a planned halving of the payments, worth an average of £3,000 per these calculations don't take into account the effects of £1bn the government has pulled forward to spend to help those with disabilities and long-term health conditions find work as swiftly as possible. This originally wasn't due to come in until 2029. This change does help Labour's argument that the changes are about reform rather than cost cutting. But this is still not fully fledged radical reform on the scale that is needed to tackle a social, fiscal and economic crisis. The OBR has not yet done the Keep Britain Working review, led by former John Lewis boss Sir Charlie Mayfield, which was commissioned by the government to look into the role of employers in health and disability, has not yet been the Netherlands, where a similar challenge was tackled two decades ago, their system makes employers responsible for the costs of helping people back into work for the first two businesses are concerned about the costs of tax, wages and employment rights policies. And there is already a fundamental question about whether the jobs are out there to support sick workers back into the workforce. Tax rises or other spending cuts The Institute for Fiscal Studies and Resolution Foundation think tanks have estimated the government's U-turn could cost £3bn, meaning Chancellor Rachel Reeves will either have to increase taxes in the autumn budget or cut spending elsewhere if she is to meet her self-imposed spending the income tax threshold freeze again, seems a plausible plan There are still a few months to go, so the Treasury might hope that growth is sustained and that borrowing costs settle, helping with the OBR numbers. It will not be lost on anyone that the precise cause of all this, however, was a hasty effort to try to bridge this same Budget rule maths gap that emerged in questions arise about just how stability and credibility-enhancing it really is to tweak fiscal plans every six months to hit Budget targets that change due to market conditions, with changes that cannot be ultimately idea floated by the International Monetary Fund that these Budget adjustments are only really needed once a year must seem quite attractive today. Is Britain getting sicker? And then there are bigger questions left Britain really fundamentally sicker than it was a decade ago, and if it is, does society want to continue current levels of support? If the best medicine really is work, as some suggest, then can employers cope, and will there be enough jobs?Or was it the system itself - previous welfare cuts - that caused the ramp up in claims in recent years, requiring a more thought-through type of reform? Should support for disability designed to help with the specific costs of physical challenges be required at similar levels by those with depression or anxiety?Dare this government make further changes to welfare? And, in pursuing narrow Budget credibility, has it lost more political credibility without actually being able to pass its plans into law?The government is not just boxed in. It seems to have created one of those magician's tricks where they handcuff themselves behind their backs in a locked box - only they lack the escape skills of a Houdini or will be relief that the markets are calm for now, with sterling and stock markets at multi-year highs. But an effort to close a Budget gap, has ended up with perhaps even more fundamental questions about how and if the government can get things done. BBC InDepth is the home on the website and app for the best analysis, with fresh perspectives that challenge assumptions and deep reporting on the biggest issues of the day. And we showcase thought-provoking content from across BBC Sounds and iPlayer too. You can send us your feedback on the InDepth section by clicking on the button below.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Advocates, lawmakers denounce CTE's proposed move to Labor Department
This story was originally published on K-12 Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily K-12 Dive newsletter. Initial efforts to move responsibility for career and technical education from the U.S. Department of Education to the U.S. Department of Labor are being met with resistance from CTE advocates and Democratic lawmakers. This response follows last month's signing of an interagency agreement that the agencies said would "promote innovation and process improvements in pursuit of better employment and earnings outcomes for program participants." The agreement, however, has been paused due to legal challenges. The planned transfer of CTE responsibilities out of the Education Department is one of several actions the Trump administration has taken to follow through on promises to dismantle the agency. The CTE interagency agreement "lays out a confusing and fragmented division of roles and responsibilities" between DOL's Employment and Training Administration and the Education Department's Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education, said Advance CTE, an organization of state CTE directors and related professionals, in a June 13 statement. Advance CTE and the Association for Career and Technical Education, a CTE advocacy organization, said in a June 11 joint statement that the agreement would have "far-reaching negative impacts on CTE programs and learners across the country." That's because the agreement "directly circumvents existing statutory requirements" under the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act, the groups said. "The Perkins Act and the CTE programs it supports are not merely job training programs; these programs are comprehensive educational and career preparation programs that prepare secondary and postsecondary learners for lifelong success by connecting academic and technical learning with the real world skills that learners need to thrive," Advance CTE and ACTE said. The interagency agreement is among the efforts paused due to ongoing litigation challenging the administration's moves to reduce the Education Department's workforce and transfer some of its responsibilities to other federal agencies. CTE advocates and other stakeholders say they only learned about the May 21 CTE interagency agreement by reading a June 10 status update issued by the Education Department as part of required legal filings. The interagency agreement was signed by Lori Bearden, acting assistant secretary of DOL's Employment and Training Administration, and Nicholas Moore, acting assistant secretary of the Education Department's Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education. Democratic lawmakers described any such CTE transfer as "illegal." In a June 18 letter from Democratic leaders of congressional appropriations and education committees to U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon, the lawmakers said Congress authorized the Education Department to carry out career and technical education and adult education programming and funding. If the agencies have ideas for reforms, the lawmakers said, those would need to be presented to Congress for approval. Additionally, they said, the interagency agreement would likely lead to K-12 school systems and colleges having to work with two federal agencies, which would lead "to delays in agency decision-making and grant administration," as well as increased inefficiencies. "Respectfully, federal agencies are not interchangeable entities that simply hand out money to states and localities. Instead, each agency provides its own specific expertise in the administration of federal programs, in this case education programs," the lawmakers wrote. The Trump administration has said it is proposing reforms across federal agencies in an effort to reduce waste and duplicative programs and to increase efficiencies. The administration's fiscal year 2026 budget proposal seeks $1.5 billion for CTE state grants and national programs, a slight cut of $2.3 million compared to the FY 2024 appropriation. The new federal fiscal year begins Oct. 1. Recommended Reading Majority of high schoolers say they don't feel prepared for post-graduation Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Irish Times
7 hours ago
- Business
- Irish Times
Charity finance manager who raised concerns over accounts awarded €35,000 for dismissal
A charity has been ordered to pay its former finance manager nearly €35,000 for dismissing him 'wholly or mainly' because he voiced fears its accounts might not stand up to an audit. The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) ruled that an email from the employee, a chartered accountant, looking for 'extra time' to investigate a loss of €33,000, sparked an 'adverse' response from its former chief executive. In a ruling just published, the WRC held back the charity's identity, despite the complainant's objections to holding the case in private, citing the nature of its work and the potential that a Garda probe into allegations of 'criminal conduct and financial irregularities' might be prejudiced. The charity asked that the case be entirely anonymised on the grounds that 'negative publicity' would lead to those using its services losing confidence. READ MORE The accountant, who represented himself before the WRC in March said he took up work with the charity as an independent contractor in June 2023 and joined its staff on September 30th that year. The charity's previous finance manager had been out sick before leaving the organisation, while an accounts assistant also left in October 2023, leaving the complainant responsible for the bookkeeping and payroll, and dealing with creditors as well, the tribunal heard. On October 26th, 2023, the complainant said, he told a board member, Mr A, he would have management accounts available 'as soon as possible' in response to a query. The organisation's chief executive wrote the following day, the eve of the October bank holiday weekend, asking after the accounts and stating they had been due the previous day. The claimant replied that he was looking into a 'draft loss of €33,000' and had identified matters requiring 'explanation and correction'. 'I must do a thorough clean up now in order to pass audit by end of January 2024. I need some extra time please,' the email concluded. When the chief executive said the board member would come to the office the following Tuesday to 'assist with the anomalies in the management accounts' the claimant expressed concerns about independence, the email thread submitted to the WRC read. The chief executive said he was 'comfortable' with the board member assisting. The complainant told the WRC the costs were being treated as current liabilities on the balance sheet and he was not confident they were being posted correctly. 'Substantial payments leaving the bank account in October 2023 triggered the query, and there was a snowball effect from there,' he said in his evidence, adding that he 'wanted to see what else was outstanding'. The claimant said he 'wasn't sure' at the time whether or not there was wrongdoing afoot at the charity but he was 'confident that company law was not being complied with and that books and records were not being kept, which is an offence'. He added that when he used the phrase 'pass audit' he 'did not do that lightly'. 'Accounts don't lie,' he said, adding that if he was in the place of his boss, he would have seen it as a 'red flag' and given more time to examine the matter instead of dismissing him. He called in sick the Tuesday after the bank holiday. The chief executive wrote to him on Thursday, November 2nd terminating his probationary employment with immediate effect. He had been a direct employee of the charity for just over a month. He also made formal written complaints to the Garda Fraud Squad, and the Charities Regulator the tribunal heard. The respondent's lawyers submitted that these complaints cited 'alleged misappropriation of funds by the CEO'. Una Clifford BL instructed by John Carroll of Crowley Millar Solicitors, for the charity, argued that the email was not a protected disclosure, but 'just another excuse' for delay due to 'poor performance'. The board member, Mr A, said he was an accountant himself and did not consider the complainant 'competent' in the role. Mr A accepted the accounts 'required improvement' but said they were not in 'as bad a state' as the complainant alleged. The chief executive, in his evidence, denied the email of October 27th was a protected disclosure. He said concerns were raised at a board meeting on Wednesday, November 1st about the complainant having 'inappropriate contact with service users', 'having his feet on the desk' and an 'issue' with Garda vetting. The accountant was terminated for poor performance, he added. The witness said the claimant had 'disobeyed a direct reasonable instruction' about going to a Friday coffee morning with service users. The claimant said he only ever went in the company of a professional employed by the charity. The tribunal also heard that in the days between the claimant writing his email and being dismissed, the charity's board discussed his Garda vetting application and noted in its minutes that he was 'not forthcoming' when he filled out the form. The claimant told the WRC that he had been bogged down with work and was delayed in submitting the application – but that in any event, the Garda vetting bureau had advised him he did not need to be vetted. He accepted when questioned that vetting was a term of his contract, but asked in response why he had been 'allowed on site without Garda vetting'. Adjudicator Michael MacNamee wrote that when he heard the evidence on the question of alleged inappropriate contact with service users, he was 'left with the impression that it was far less serious than was suggested in the submissions'. It lacked 'credibility' as a reason for dismissal, he added. Any issue around Garda vetting was 'no longer live' by the time it was brought before the board, he added. The adjudicator noted that both Mr A and the complainant were accountants, but neither could be said to be independent, so there was no independent expert evidence before him on the accounts. He concluded on the balance of probabilities that the charity had failed to rebut the presumption that the claimant had a 'reasonable belief that the accounts were not being kept in accordance with the legal requirements'. He concluded that the email of October 27th, 2023 from the complainant was a protected disclosure, and that this 'started a chain reaction which led directly to the complainant's dismissal'. The WRC ruled that the accountant's dismissal 'resulted wholly or mainly from the making by him of a protected disclosure'. Whatever concerns the chief executive had about the worker's performance 'whether justified or not', there was no written record of anything serious enough to require more than some 'coaching', the adjudicator wrote. He found the chief executive had a 'strong adverse reaction' to the email of October 27th, 2023 which was exacerbated by the complainant's emails pushing back on allowing Mr A becoming involved, and leading ultimately to the chief executive's patience running out. He ruled the worker was unfairly dismissed and awarded him €34,737 in compensation.
Irish Times
9 hours ago
- Business
- Irish Times
RTÉ HR manager denies newsroom worker had to ‘misrepresent himself to Revenue' to get shifts with broadcaster
A senior human resources manager at RTÉ has denied at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) that it got a media worker to 'misrepresent his employment status' to the taxman to get shifts in its newsroom. The worker, Joseph Kelly, claims he was denied the statutory entitlements to paid leave and Sunday premium pay that would normally accrue to an employee while he was engaged by the broadcaster under a 'freelance' contract between 2012 and 2018. The State broadcaster, however, argues that Mr Kelly was paid all Sunday premiums owed, along with annual leave and public holidays. RTÉ was found liable for a €36,000 bill for the period by the Department of Social Protection after it ruled in 2022 that Mr Kelly had been employed since 2012. READ MORE However, it maintains the ruling only pertains to insurability of employment and that the claims are out of time. Questioned repeatedly about Mr Kelly's status at a hearing on Thursday, a senior human resources manager at RTÉ said: 'We absolutely accept the insurability decision. The reality was that the contract Joseph signed was a sole trader agreement. I can't rewrite history, that's what it was.' The WRC was hearing evidence in complaints brought under the Organisation of Working Time Act 2005 and the Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994 by Mr Kelly. Mr Kelly's representative, Martin McMahon, said the Department's Scope ruling showed his client 'should have been treated as an employee' by RTÉ since 2012, and it therefore followed that he had been denied various pay-related statutory rights set out in his complaints. IATA Director General Willie Walsh on airline profits, air fares and why the Dublin Airport passenger cap makes Ireland a laughing stock Listen | 35:56 Mr Kelly claims he was denied the entitlement to paid annual leave, not paid for public holidays, and did not receive a premium for Sunday work from 2012 to 2018. He further alleges he was not provided with a statement of his core terms of employment. Giving evidence on Thursday, Mr Kelly said: 'The way I was brought in was by word of mouth. My name was given to a guy, I was brought in, talked to a manager, it was a casual interview. When I was coming in, HR said I had to be a sole trader, so I became a sole trader,' he said. Mr Kelly said his job at that time in the broadcaster's media ingest department from 2012 to 2018 was to 'cover the guys in the room' – all of whom were RTÉ employees – and to do 'whatever was needed of me'. It was a 'high-pressure role' where Mr Kelly and his co-workers received and organised multimedia material and recorded news feeds from across the world in preparation for news broadcasts, the complainant said. 'I wouldn't have received time off. It's famine or feast – you might have a month where you might get two days; you might have a month where you only get two days off,' Mr Kelly told the hearing. This situation continued from 2012 to 2018, when the ingest room manager 'got a promotion' and an employee 'moved up' into the management position, leaving an open vacancy, whereupon he 'became staff', Mr Kelly said. He told the WRC that due to the fact he was self employed, he 'wasn't allowed' to apply for internal jobs. Having received a staff contract, he later secured a more senior position as a newsroom co-ordinator in 2023, he said. He also said he believed he should have got incremental pay rises and could have advanced to a more senior role more quickly if he had access to internal staff competitions and that he 'should be on a higher rate than I'm on now'. Addressing Mr Kelly's current contract in cross-examination, RTÉ's solicitor, Seamus Given of Arthur Cox, put it to the complainant that he was on point 12 of a 14-point salary scale in his current role, after 11 years' service. 'I'm putting it to you are correctly positioned,' Mr Given said. 'Well, I would say no,' Mr Kelly said. Angela McEvoy, a senior HR manager at RTÉ, gave evidence that in that period Kelly was paid all Sunday premium owed, along with annual leave and public holidays, referring to a payroll report submitted by the broadcaster. Questioning Ms McEvoy, Mr McMahon said: 'Joseph was an employee of RTÉ from 2012 to 2018, that's the legal position, uncontested by RTÉ. Joseph's increments would be different if RTÉ accepted all those years of service, yes or no?' 'No, we're saying not, because Mr Kelly is on point 12 of the salary scale, that is obviously close to the top of the salary scale,' Ms McEvoy said. Asked whether RTÉ informed Mr Kelly that he had been 'misclassified as self-employed' when he was first put on an employment contract in 2018, Ms McEvoy said: 'No, because there was no need to do that. There was no need to inform Mr Kelly of anything like that.' 'Joseph was offered employment in RTÉ, but legally Joseph had been an employee from 2012, do you accept that?' Mr McMahon said. 'No I don't,' Ms McMahon said. 'You've accepted it in Social Welfare, why won't you accept it here?' Mr McMahon asked. 'What RTÉ accepted is a PRSI insurability decision going back to 2012,' the witness said. Mr McMahon continued to press Ms McEvoy on this point for some time and received the same answer. She said at one stage: 'You're saying there's a contract of employment. We absolutely accept an insurability decision. The reality was that the contract Joseph signed was a sole trader agreement. I can't rewrite history, that's what it was,' she said. Addressing the contract for services signed by Mr Kelly in 2012, Mr McMahon put it to her that RTÉ 'has the power in that situation' and that there was 'no negotiation' of its terms. 'I don't accept what you're saying. There is a choice for an individual to sign or not. Nobody is forced to sign,' she said. She agreed that it was a term of the contract that a worker 'had to be registered as self-employed in order to access a self-employment agreement' with RTÉ at that time. Mr McMahon said it was an offence to 'procure an employee to misrepresent themselves to the Revenue Commissioners'. 'In the contract, black and white, [it states] RTÉ has to receive written confirmation from the Revenue Commissioners that Joseph can be treated as self-employed for tax purposes,' Mr McMahon said. 'Do you accept RTÉ did procure Joseph to misrepresent himself to Revenue?' Mr McMahon said. 'Absolutely not,' Ms McEvoy said. Adjudication officer John Harraghy has concluded his hearings into the matter and will issue his decision in writing to the parties in due course.
