Construction firm ‘stealing from foreign workers’

MULTINATIONAL construction firm Gama was yesterday accused of stealing millions of euro from staff each month by underpaying hundreds of Turkish workers employed on numerous State projects.

As a Government report into allegations of migrant labour abuse was forwarded to Gama yesterday, Socialist Party leader Joe Higgins made a series of further sensational allegations in the Dáil.

Mr Higgins, who in February accused Gama of paying as little as €2 an hour, said in the Dáil that the firm was engaged in "criminal exploitation in the extreme".

"What in fact we have is a master fraud by a major entity in the construction scene in this country, a grand larceny of workers' wages amounting to millions of euro each month stolen from the workers and tens of millions over the last year alone."

Holding up pay slips and bank statements from Turkey, Mr Higgins also alleged that workers had been coached under "severe duress" to tell Labour Inspectorate investigators that additional wages were being paid into accounts in the Netherlands.

Mr Higgins highlighted one worker who was being paid €1,000 a month for more than 300 hours instead of the €4,000 he should receive.

Tánaiste Mary Harney said the kind of abuse outlined was a disgrace. "If the report bears out what you are saying and I'm not in any way casting doubt on what you are saying then it is a total disgrace and all the forces of the State will have to brought to bear in relation to this," she said.

Although Gama have been given a week to consider the Government's report, the Irish Examiner revealed on Monday that the report recommends that Enterprise Minister Micheál Martin sanction further investigations by the Director of Corporate Enforcement and possibly the Revenue Commissioners.

Although Gama has always denied the allegations, the firm this month admitted that an internal review had discovered underpayments of 8% to workers.

The development resulted in Mr Martin freezing the firm's work permits while Gama's solicitor conceded that any further disclosures could result in the closure of the firm's Irish operations.