Independent TD Mick Wallace has been fined €7,000 for withholding employers’ pension contributions to employees in one of his building firms.
Mr Wallace, from Clontarf Road, Dublin, pleaded guilty to five charges under Section 58 (A) of the Pension Act of withholding employers' contributions amounting to €2,956 dating from January 2008 to May 2008. The case was taken by the Irish Pensions Board.
The total amount owed in withheld pensions contributions from Mr Wallace and his company M&J Wallace Ltd amounted to €49,311.31. Nineteen of the 24 charges which were against his company were struck out yesterday in the District Court.
The monies were discharged between July last year when the summons was first issued and the first court appearance in October.
This morning, Mr Wallace pleaded guilty to the five counts.
His counsel, Joe Jeffers, said the money had not been paid over to the Construction Workers Pension Scheme because the financial difficulties experienced by Mr Wallace's companies and because of "some disorganisation" in the company accounts.
Since then the money had been paid despite the financial pressure experienced by Mr Wallace's company and the "severe financial pressure" he was experiencing personally after having a €19 million judgment registered against him by ACC Bank in October.
Judge John Paul McDonald said it was unusual that all the liabilities in relation to the pension had been discharged before the case came to him.
However, he said he took a "very serious view" of such offences and fined Mr Wallace €1,000 on each of the first four counts and €3,000 for the fifth count with a year to pay and a 15-day jail term in the event of a default.
Afterwards Mr Wallace acknowledged that he owed the money and said it had arisen as a result of a discrepancy between himself and the Pensions Board. He had tried to resolve the dispute for a "long time".
He said there was €136,000 owed over the two years from January 2008 to January 2010 that were the subject of the original summons.
At "no stage", he said, was the employees' contribution made. "I realise it is a very serious matter, and the courts are right to deal with it in a serious fashion," he said.
