A LIMERICK property developer has pleaded guilty at Limerick District Court to withholding the pension contributions of 170 employees amounting to over €50,000 for over two years. The Pensions Board sought 23 charges amounting to €53,527.34 against the accused and the company, but Peter Stritch, Bellisle Properties, Clonlara, Clare, pleaded guilty to five charges, amounting to €27,861.98, of not passing on the pension payments of the workers to the Construction Workers Pension Scheme.
On each of the five counts before the court, Peter Stritch, Bellisle Properties Ltd was fined €1,000 and was given six months to pay while he was also ordered to pay €5,000 in legal costs.
Bellisle Properties Ltd, in liquidation, was also convicted and fined a sum of €1,000 in respect of each of the five offences before the court, with three months to pay. The case was heard by Judge O’Donnell who noted that the non-payment of pension contributions by Peter Stritch was deliberate and occurred during the construction boom period.
Peter Stritch, with an address at Bellisle, Clonlara, Co. Clare, was a director of Bellisle Properties Limited, a company which had deducted pension contributions from the wages and salaries of its employees between October 2006 and December 2008 for remittance to the trustees of CWPS but failed to remit the pension contributions to the trustees within the statutory timeframe.
The offences of the company were committed with the consent or connivance of or attributable to neglect on the part of Peter Stritch, as director of Bellisle Properties Ltd., contrary to the provisions of Section 58A(1) and Section 3 of the Act.
Ms Mary Hutch, Head of Regulation at The Pensions Board, in giving evidence on behalf of The Pensions Board, stated that on foot of receiving complaints from employees, that this employer had deducted pension contributions from their wages and salaries but failed to remit them to the relevant scheme and the Board’s investigative personnel carried out a search of the company’s premises on July 23, 2009 to investigate this matter.
It was stated in Court that it was estimated that the employees’ pension contributions, which were deducted from employees’ wages and salaries but not remitted to the relevant scheme came to a sum of €53,527.34.
Pat Barriscale, defence solicitor, said that some €9,000 of the outstanding amount had been paid to the Pensions Board and that Mr Stritch’s personal financial circumstances were “perilous”.
Chief Executive of the Pensions Board, Mr. Brendan Kennedy, said, in the second such case of its kind in the State. “The conviction should act as a warning to all employers and directors that The Pensions Board treats the failure of the employer to remit pension contributions to the trustees of the pension scheme as a very serious offence. The Board is currently preparing prosecutions of a number of other employers and directors. We advise any employer with outstanding pension contributions to contact the pension scheme to regularise their position”.
