A board member of the Construction Industry Federation (CIF) has made some very serious allegations against the body (Sunday Independent).
The allegations, made by Jerry Beades, include:
That around €30m from the CIF pension scheme is controlled by senior CIF and trade union officials unknown to the membership of the CIF and employees who make contributions.
That the CIF has shown a blatant disregard for safe accounting and that the matter should be investigated by the Pensions Ombudsman.
That large sums have been collected which are not used for pension-contribution purposes.
The Director General of CIF, Tom Parlon, is not at all happy with Mr. Beades and has accused him of making wild allegations without foundation.
He accused Mr. Beades of showing a total lack of respect for the chair of the meeting, the integrity of the officers of CIF and the private business affairs of individual members
He demanded that Mr. Beades should conduct himself in a professional and civil manner at CIF meetings and that he apologise in writing to fellow members for his behaviour at a meeting last week.
The curious thing is that, apart from a lot of bluster, Parlon doesn’t actually deny or explain any of the serious allegations.