Construction industry ‘worst offender’ in pensions area

The Pensions Board has singled out the construction industry as the worst offender for not paying employees’ pension contributions into their pension funds.

Pension board chief executive, Brendan Kennedy, said that they had spent a considerable amount of time investigating and prosecuting construction companies for deducting employees wages but not paying them into pension funds.

“In 2012, as in recent years, a considerable part of the board’s time and effort has been spent investigating and prosecuting cases where some employers, mostly in the construction industry, have failed to remit contributions to a pension scheme after deducting them from employees’ pay.

This work has resulted in a significant number of prosecutions and convictions of companies and, in many cases, directors, and these have continued in 2013,” he said.

The boards annual report highlighted that there had been 25 new suspected cases of deduction and non-remittance of pension contributions by employers in the construction industry last year.

This followed on from 98 cases in 2011 and a shocking 514 allegations of employers deducting wages and not paying it into the construction workers’ scheme since 2007.

Most of the cases have come to light as a result of whistleblowers coming forward to alert the pensions board to the disappearance of employees contributions.

“The construction industry prosecutions have been the result of whistle blowering by scheme trustees and others, and the number of these alerts is now falling sharply.

“This means that the board will be able to devote more time in 2013 to proactive supervision and we can focus our attention on other areas of non-compliance,” Mr Kennedy said.

A spokesperson for the construction industry federation said that they were working with the pensions board to make sure that pensions deductions are paid into the pension pots.

“There should never be any cases whereby employees believe they are paying money into a pension fund and that money then does not find its way to the fund.

“The CIF and our members support the work being done by the Pensions Board to ensure that all pension deductions are paid to the relevant pension scheme and any cases of non-remittance should be handled accordingly.”