Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have made pension reform a priority for my term as Minister for Social Protection. This includes an intention to develop a new supplementary retirement savings system for those workers without adequate savings for retirement.

The rate of supplementary pension coverage in Ireland is estimated at only 35% of the working population when the private sector is considered in isolation. If measures are not taken to ameliorate this low rate of coverage, many future retirees will suffer potentially significant unwanted reductions in their living standards on reaching retirement.

Despite considerable efforts over many years to incentivise voluntary pension participation, the purely voluntary approach is not achieving the desired goal of increasing coverage. Therefore, it is my intention to bring forward proposals for an auto-enrolment retirement savings system. The reform would be consistent with the outcome of the OECD's 2014 Review of the Irish Pensions System, a key recommendation of which was to increase private pensions coverage through the introduction of a mandatory or quasi-mandatory earnings related system.

Initial consultations have taken place with Irish sectoral interests and international experts in this field. While there is much to learn by looking at the strengths and weaknesses apparent in aspects of other countries' pension systems, any solution must be tailored to fit the Irish situation. Therefore, as work progresses, I will ensure that extensive efforts are made to build consensus across political, business and civil society lines and to consider the manner in which such a system would be best delivered.

See this speech in context