PB October/November 2023 October/November 2023 31
DELIVERblOOd on its hands
responsibility for complying with the law though
they know their systems encourage v e r i fi e d
account holders to fl out it.
Criminals exploit the reality that, because of
the risk of deportation, substitute riders are
unwilling to contact the police to report crimes to
which they have been subjected. Public
authorities have not responded appropriately to
the shocking death of Thiago Cortes on 31 August
2020 and violent attacks have increased.
While most Stamp 2 riders can only a ord to
use a bicycle to fulfi l their delivery orders, others
who have access to them, use their car. Once
more the platforms make it a condition of their
service contracts that “Riders using a car or
scooter to complete deliveries will need to
purchase their own vehicle insurance”. But, as
with work permissions, the companies abdicate
all responsibility for ensuring compliance. The
companies have not taken reasonable measures
to ensure their delivery drivers have valid
insurance to cover all injuries for which they might
be liable to members of the public with whom
they are involved in a road accident. Many drivers,
as a result of the severe cuts to the fees they earn,
have been tempted to purchase cheaper
personal-use insurance policies that are invalid
when the vehicle insured is being used for
commercial deliveries.
Fine Gael has embraced the gig economy. it
sees how service providers, programmers and
professionals can benefi t from this rapidly
developing sector but has little concern to
address the dangers facing and exploitation of
low paid workers. The documents released to
Village show the civil service are highly resistant
to acceding to Deliveroo’s lobbying to water
down worker protections in Irish law. Sadly, they
have been all too slow to introduce new
regulations that address the new dangers of this
business model.
into the substitute riders’ bank accounts.
However, some profile owners insist that
substitute riders’ fees are paid to the profi le
owner’s bank account and sometimes the fees
earned are withheld from the substitute. In such
situations, the rider has very little recourse as
reporting the theft exposes them to the risk of
being deported for breaching the conditions of
their visa.
As Village revealed, this illegality was brought
to the attention of the government by Deliveroo
itself in the course of its lobbying for changes to
Irish employment law. In May 2021, Deliveroo’s
Country Manager, Paddy Quinlan, wrote to the
Minister responsible, Leo Varadkar, looking to
change Stamp 2 visas’ working permissions
because “It is increasingly clear that the law
prohibiting Stamp 2 visa holders from being self-
employed has presented a signifi cant challenge
for international students”. When Deliveroo CEO,
Will Shu, met Varadkar later that month, these
illegal work practices were one of the items that
featured prominently on their agenda; while the
Department of Enterprise’s records show that, at
a further meeting about the topic with Damien
English on 18 October 2021, “They [Deliveroo]
also indicated that they had contacted the
Minister for Justice regarding limitations imposed
regarding working hours under certain visa
permission categories”.
Deliveroo and Just Eat have a simple, easy and
obvious solution to hand. They merely need to
require substitute riders to provide the same
documents that they demand from their account
holders. However, the platforms’ abdicate
I
t is irrefutable, and indeed these platforms
decline to refute the allegations when it has
been repeatedly put to them, that Visa
Stamp 2 holders circumvent the work
conditions of their visa – which prohibits
engaging in self-employed work – by using the
profi les of platform account rider accounts.
The platform companies are accomplices in
this illegality as their Apps allow approved riders
to use substitute riders to fulfi l their deliveries.
Prospective platform riders must produce
documents confi rming their identity and their
legal entitlement to work before they are accepted
as riders. Lacking the requisite permissions and
paperwork, Stamp 2 visa holders cannot sign up
to be riders using their own identities. However,
a feature of Deliveroo and Just Eat’s rider Apps,
(and a term of the companies’ service contracts
for that matter), is that approved riders are
allowed to use their profi les to appoint another
person to complete the account holder’s
deliveries.
However, neither Just Eat nor Deliveroo asks to
see or check the substitute riders’ documents
when profi le owners appoint them. The design of
these platforms allows anyone, irrespective of
their identities or work permissions to become a
substitute rider.
As a direct consequence of this platform
design, a shadow market has arisen in which
valid profi le owners unlawfully rent out their
Deliveroo or Just Eat rider profi les to migrants
who are not legally permitted to undertake self-
employed work and charge them up to €100 per
week for the privilege of working in miserable
conditions for miserly fees.
Deliveroo facilitates this illegal practice by
allowing account holders to change the details of
the receiving bank account into which rider fees
are remitted. This allows fees to be paid directly
Deliveroo facilitates this illegal practice by
allowing account holders to change the
details of the receiving bank account into
which rider fees are remitted
By J Vivian Cooke
NEWS
The dynamic between Fine Gael, the civil service and
the likes of Deliveroo leaves delivery riders cynically
and dangerously underpaid and unregulated
DELIVER
bl
OO
d
on its hands
Since Village revealed in its July issue that delivery food platforms such as Deliveroo and Just
Eat rely extensively on the illegal exploitation of international students, other media outlets
have followed
Village
’s reporting to such an extent that it is impossible for these companies
to claim ignorance of the practices revealed. The story of cynical exploitation of the most
vulnerable, in a model that depends on the illegality of their working status, has since
featured in the
New York Times
, the
Irish Examiner
and the
Irish Times
among other media.
The dynamic between Fine Gael, the civil service and The dynamic between Fine Gael, the civil service and The dynamic between Fine Gael, the civil service and
The dynamic between Fine Gael, the civil service and The dynamic between Fine Gael, the civil service and The dynamic between Fine Gael, the civil service and
the likes of Deliveroo leaves delivery riders cynically the likes of Deliveroo leaves delivery riders cynically the likes of Deliveroo leaves delivery riders cynically
and dangerously underpaid and unregulatedand dangerously underpaid and unregulatedand dangerously underpaid and unregulated
and dangerously underpaid and unregulatedand dangerously underpaid and unregulatedand dangerously underpaid and unregulated

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