Warrant issued for arrest of director over pensions

A bench warrant has been issued for the arrest of the director of a prominent Irish construction company.

Limestone Construction Ltd director Colm McNulty is accused of deducting pension contributions worth €80,000 from workers’ wages then failing to pay the money into a scheme.

Mr McNulty failed to appear at Dublin District Court this morning, where the Irish Pensions Board brought a criminal case against him and his company.

Limestone’s registered office is at 2 Kilreesk Lane, St Margarets, County Dublin.

Outlining the background to the case, Remy Farrell BL alleged deductions were made from employees’ pay packets but were not passed on to the Construction Workers Pension Scheme (CWPS).

The contributions of nearly 200 workers went unpaid over a period of 14 months. Limestone has been a party to the CWPS since July 2006.

Judge David McHugh said he had no difficulty issuing a bench warrant in relation to the matter. In March the board took a case to the High Court.

In addition to the charge outlined in the District Court today, it argued the company had failed to make employer contributions to the CWPS.

At the High Court, the company was told to pay arrears of contributions amounting to €186,825. This figure represented both the funds deducted from workers’ pay packets and the money the company itself should have paid into the pension scheme.

Speaking after the hearing at the District Court, the board’s head of investigations, Mary Hutch, said the company had failed to comply with the High Court order.

She claimed Limestone had written a cheque for part-payment of the monies due, €60,000, which had bounced. It was “obviously a very serious matter”, she said.

The board’s chief executive, Brendan Kennedy, described the case as the first of its kind.

“The Pension Board’s job is to protect the rights of people in pension schemes. In our view there is no more serious offence that deducting money and not paying it over,” he said.

“There’s a warrant out for Mr McNulty. This case awaits the execution of that warrant.”

Mr Kennedy said the board’s actions demonstrated how seriously it took such matters.