Boss jailed for missing pension payments
The company director has now been jailed for six months.
Patrick ‘Happy’ Coleman worked for Gerry Neilon Scaffolding Ltd before he was murdered in Sept 2007.
The father of two bled to death after being stabbed in the neck by a 15-year-old boy, who is serving a 10-year sentence after pleading guilty to murder at the Central Criminal Court in 2009.
Limerick District Court heard that Mr Coleman’s family, including his two children, have been denied a payment of €76,000 because of the actions of Gerry Neilon Scaffolding Ltd.
Neilon, of Newtown, Pallasgreen, Co Limerick, pleaded guilty to breaching the Pensions Act by failing to reply to a statutory request for information on pension contributions.
Solicitor Madeleine Delaney, who was representing the Irish Pensions Board, told the court it appeared that the scaffolding company was making deductions from employees’ wages but the money was not being paid into the pension scheme.
However, she said requests for specific information from the company had not been complied with.
Ms Delaney said Mr Coleman’s dependents should have been entitled to a “death in service payment” of €76,000 but “they got nothing”.
Solicitor John Devane, representing Neilon and another company director, Raymond Neilon of Cappawhite, Co Tipperary, said there are currently proceedings being taken in the High Court against the company’s accountant, seeking “recovery of funds that should have been paid in”.
“It’s the accountant that didn’t pay,” said Mr Devane.
However, Judge Aeneas McCarthy said he would only deal with the matters before him and noted that the scaffolding company had not been forthcoming with information, despite several requests from the Irish Pensions Board.
He jailed Neilon for six months.
The judge issued a bench warrant for the arrest of Raymond Neilon, who was not in court.
He also fined Gerry Neilon Scaffolding Ltd €1,000 and awarded costs of €500.
