The Irish Construction Workers’ Pension Scheme (CWPS) is set to become voluntary.

Under the Construction & Electrical Industry Registered Employment Agreements (REA), employers were required to provide pension, sick pay and death-in-service benefit cover for their employees.

However, following a legal challenge from a number of contractors the REA was deemed unconstitutional.

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The CWPS had been the largest to collect contributions from employers, a scheme worth some €1.2bn.

Pat Ferguson, chief executive of the CWPS, was quoted on the IPE.com website as saying: "In the future, there is no requirement on employers to provide the level of benefits originally set out in the REA.

"This impacts us insofar as we now may have several construction firms among our members that will no longer want to pay any contributions.

"It means the scheme is no longer mandatory and our new strategy will have to be based on a voluntary pension scheme."

(MH)