Around 85,000 building workers who should be entitled to benefit from the industry's pension and life assurance scheme are not covered by it, according to a report released yesterday.

A Pensions Board study of the Construction Federation Operatives' Pension Scheme has found that the 40-year-old plan does not reflect the current needs of the industry.

The board carried out the study after approaches from the Republic's biggest union, Siptu, which feared that a large number of companies in the industry were not providing the benefit for their workers, even though the law obliges them to do so.

The board's report, compiled by Mercer Human Resource Consulting, states that, as of March 2005, the scheme had 7,077 participating companies and 65,129 active members, more than 177,000 deferred pensioners and funds of €563 million.

It provides a maximum benefit of €3,600 a year and death-in-service payments of €63,500 for spouses, with additional amounts for dependent children.

The report points out that, according to the Central Statistics Office's (CSO) last Quarterly National Household Survey for 2004, there were 220,000 people working in the industry. Of these, approximately 80,000 should have been included in the scheme, but only 65,000, or 80 per cent, were participants.

"In addition, there are approximately 70,000 operatives classified as having self-employed status by the Revenue and who are thus not eligible for inclusion in the scheme," the report says.

It states that the board does not believe these individuals, mainly skilled craftsmen, are self-employed in the accepted sense of the term, and are thus losing out on the benefits of the scheme.

It recommends that the Revenue should review the application of its guidelines in relation to self-employed people as they apply in the building industry, and ensure that the status is only available to those who legitimately satisfy those criteria.

However, the study found that an increased emphasis on compliance has paid off in recent years, with €41 million in contributions paid between 2002 and 2004.