Gogarty cancelled pension scheme - counsel

Mr James Gogarty has continually complained that he felt the Murphy group would leave him without a pension after his years of service, and justified his subsequent actions against the group by saying he was fighting for a pension for himself and his family, Mr Garrett Cooney SC, for the Murphy group, said yesterday.

However, Mr Cooney revealed for the first time during the Flood tribunal hearings that JMSE operated a non-contributory pension fund for its employees until Mr Gogarty cancelled it in 1980.

Continuing his cross-examination, Mr Cooney asked Mr Gogarty: "Do you remember being part of the JMSE pension scheme when you were managing director?"

Mr Gogarty: "That's right, yes."

"And contributions to that pension scheme had been made solely by your employer," Mr Cooney added. "On occasions during the course of hearings of the tribunal you suggested your employers had treated you very badly," he said.

"Now apart from the £760,000 they had paid to you in 1989 and 1990, I suggest they also had in place for you and other employees a non-contributory pension scheme, isn't that correct?"

Mr Gogarty accepted it was, but "that is nothing unusual".

"I think it is relevant, bearing in mind the false picture that you have been attempting to paint of your employers. I would suggest to you that although the scheme existed for a number of years that you, as managing director of the company, actually cancelled it."

When Mr Gogarty appeared confused, acknowledging "I may have" but adding "I am drawing a non-contributory pension now", Mr Cooney countered that Mr Gogarty knew exactly what he meant.

"There was a non-contributory pension scheme in place for JMSE employees, that you were a beneficiary under that scheme but, for one reason or another, you, as managing director, abolished that scheme. Isn't that so?"

Mr Gogarty, having first replied that he would like to see the paperwork and then he understood it to be an insurance scheme, said, "When I was getting to 65 I had to go for a test for the scheme and that is the time they found out that I had diabetes."