PRSI question

Hi,

I've been employed by a company for 5 years now. They pay me for the work that's carried on on their premises and outside of their premises. The only thing is that for the work that I do outside of their premises they issue a cheque that's not processed through their paye/prsi system. What they do is they invoice the company I do the work for (only a few hours here and there) the company pay them and then my employer pays me. they said i should set up as a sole trader for these hours that are carried outside of their premises. can they do that? can they actually subcontract their own employees? I am asking this because i'm worried my stamps will be affected by that
Many thanks

Many years ago when I was in payroll (HSE) we use to consider a certain type of employee as self employed (can't remember the grade now) so we paid PRSI S or something.

Theses seld employed people didn't normally work on HSE premises - it was usually clients home.

One 'employee' appealed this to PRSI SCOPE division and the HSE lost.

The main reasons were;

the HSE allocated the work and the number of sessions.

The 'sub- contractor' could not for example decide a client needed 5 or 6 sessions.

The contractor had no say in the price he charged.

Sorry now the details are hazy but the reasons I have this memory is I wasn't long in the section and it was the first time I saw my boss kicking the filing cabinets afterwards with rage (not the last though).

Many thanks for that Becky, it makes perfect sense. I'll check again with payroll see what they have to say.