Builders who keep pension contributions owed to their workers will face prosecution, the Pensions Ombudsman warned today.
By law all construction workers must be registered by their employers in the Construction Federation Operatives Pension Scheme (CFOPS).
But the Pensions Ombudsman Paul Kenny said there was evidence of systematic non-compliance by certain companies.
"It is my intention, in any case where I believe that the law has been broken, to refer the matter to whatever authority may be appropriate in the circumstances of the case, so that prosecution can be considered," he said.
The complaints to the Ombudsman include the failure of building firms to register workers for pension contributions or to pay pension contributions deducted from workers pay.
There have also been complaints about companies forcing workers to pretend to be self-employed to avoid contributing to the scheme.
In his annual report for 2004, Mr Kenny investigated the case of two construction workers who died and found they were not, but should have been, covered by the CFOPS scheme. He found their employers to be liable for the death benefit that should have been paid to their families.
The Construction Industry Federation has since agreed to raise the death benefit from €20,000 to €63,500.
"I cannot understand how employers are willing to take the risk of having to pay this amount as a result of failure to register a member in the scheme," said Mr Kenny.
The office of the Pensions Ombudsman was established in 2003 to investigate complaints and disputes about pensions. It dealt with 450 official complaint cases and more than 1,500 telephone
queries last year.
Although 23 determinations were made, only seven complaints were upheld. But the Ombudsman also solved 33 cases by mediation, with 22 of these resulting in compensation to the complainant.
Mr Kenny said one of the biggest factors behind the number of complaints was the poor communication between pension providers and their customers.
"Greater use of plain English should be encouraged and I have come across examples of this which are to be congratulated.
However, far too often it is clear that benefit statements and other communications issuing from trustees and administrators represent the "old school" approach to pension communications."
Minister for Social and Family Affairs Seamus Brennan said a major review of the national pensions strategy would be complete within weeks.
He said it would help the Government tackle the pensions problem - there are more than 900,000 people out of the two million-strong workforce who do not have a private pension.
"Unless this trend is aggressively addressed and reversed then hundreds of thousands of people face into a retirement on the basic social welfare pension of less than €10,000 a year," he said.
Mr Brennan has raised the prospect of introducing compulsory pensions for all workers, unless they deliberately opted out of them.