Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

I will deal with the investment management providers first and come back to the Tata issue.

There are a number of reasons the NTMA is not the appropriate institution for managing retirement savings funds that are collected through the automatic enrolment system. The NTMA currently manages State money. It does not have the systems, the processes, the knowledge or the experience to manage individual savings and investment accounts or to conduct the administration of those over many decades. Accordingly, it would need to either build or contract those for the provision.

Second, giving the task to the NTMA would be to add something very different to its long list of existing functions.

Third, we are of the view that automatic enrolment is so important and that this is such an important project that it needs to have a dedicated expert function and we have chosen to establish a new body for that purpose, which we have just discussed. That body is NAERSA. Section 9 of the automatic enrolment, AE, Act already provides for this body to be responsible for arranging for the investment of contributions. Having the NTMA charged with this function adds a further level of complexity and cost to the oversight of the scheme.

Fourth, the NTMA reports to a different Minister at a different Department. It would confuse and complicate the governance and the regulation arrangements.

Finally, the basis of the amendment, the Deputy can correct me if I am wrong, is that the NTMA would invest the funds without using the commercial investment market. This is not the case. The NTMA invests State money in the international funds market. It uses commercial investment managers from private industry to do this already and this is what NAERSA is going to do with retirement savings. Giving that function to the NTMA would not change how the funds are invested and it would not necessarily guarantee an improvement in participant outcomes. There would be no upside benefit for the My Future Fund account holders from having the NTMA manage and invest their funds.

The automatic enrolment Act has established NAERSA. NAERSA has a statutory duty to operate in the best interests of the participants in My Future Fund. Additionally, and in line with the provisions of the AE Act, a set of investment manager providers has already been procured through a competitive tendering process earlier in 2025. That tendering process required fees to be less than 0.1% of assets under management. I can confirm that the prices attached to the bids were significantly below the maximum ceiling.

They represent excellent value for the participants and are much lower than typically available in pension schemes. Accepting the amendments in that context would result in serious legal jeopardy to the State. The chosen investment managers - chosen through a tendering process - have been negotiating a contract in good faith. They have invested considerably in establishing funds and are developing integration with the system administrator as we speak. It would result not just in a loss of value-for-money fees but also further delay implementation of the auto-enrolment scheme. I cannot accept this modification. We have been talking about this for 20 years and for the two thirds of workers in the private sector not actively contributing to an occupational pension scheme or equivalent are now getting access and can now finally have a quality assured retirement scheme. We are determined to implement this from January.

Specifically in relation to the Deputy's issues regarding Tata, Tata Consultancy Services, TCS, is the managed service provider for My Future Fund. Its role is not in investment. That was procured through an open EU-based tendering process. It was conducted in 2023 and 2024. TCS won the contract on the basis of providing the most advantageous tender that fulfilled the requirements. There is no legal basis for excluding TCS from participating in the process, nor is there a legal basis for withdrawing this contract from TCS. TCS is a global IT services consulting and business solution organisation. It includes over 600,000 employees worldwide across 51 subsidiary companies in 55 counties including TCS Ireland, which is headquartered in Letterkenny with over 1,000 employees. It is from Letterkenny that the work of the back office - the technical, skilled work in terms of managing this - is being done. It is in Letterkenny that the National Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings Authority, NAERSA, will be based. It will be a totally separate organisation to TCS. TCS will provide consulting and will run this through the governance of NAERSA.