Building industry hands time-bomb to workers
Yet the Pensions Ombudsman has recently warned that up to 130,000 workers in the construction industry are ineligible for pensions, sick pay, unemployment benefit, etc, because their employers are failing to make PRSI contributions on their behalf.
The construction industry has been a major beneficiary of the Celtic Tiger economy, as well as benefiting from most of the Government’s tax-based investment schemes.
Coincidentally, the industry is also the biggest contributor to the Fianna Fáil coffers.
In the Dáil recently, Deputy Joe Higgins questioned the Taoiseach on apparent Government inaction on the findings of the Pensions Ombudsman.
In response, the Taoiseach’s lack of outrage, or even interest, was palpable. This behaviour by construction firms was “inappropriate.” Only if they were deducting employee PRSI and failing to pass it on did he choose to deem it “illegal.”
In conclusion, he invited Deputy Higgins to pass on the names of offending firms - a similar invitation to that extended to the families of Stardust victims.
Many thousands of Irish building workers found, to their cost, the long-term drawbacks of working ‘on the lump’ in the UK in decades past.
They were exploited by unscrupulous contractors, many of them Irish, who made their fortunes by cheating the system.
We’re set to relearn that lesson in future decades in Ireland unless the Government recognises now that it has a responsibility to find and punish the culprits.
Peter Molloy
9 Haddington Park
Glenageary
Co Dublin
