Michael Collins (Cork South-West, Independent Ireland Party)

Let us speak plainly about the Government's new auto-enrolment pensions scheme, which is due to begin next year. On the surface, it is being sold as a measure to help people save for retirement but after a closer look, it has all the hallmarks of another USC in the making, a so-called temporary charge that workers are still paying 14 years later. Under the scheme, employees and employers will each be forced to contribute 3% of gross wages. What will the Government contribute? A mere half of 1%. That is not a partnership. It is a raw deal. Workers and small business are being asked to shoulder the load while the State pays the least. Employers, particularly small and medium businesses already under pressure, will face major new costs with the present economic uncertainty. Is this really a wise decision? Employees will be automatically enrolled whether they like it or not. Yes, they can opt out after six months but only to be dragged back in every two years. That is not choice. That is entrapment. For employers, the consequences of slipping up are heavy. There are heavy fines, prosecutions and layers of red tape that make running a small business even harder.

The central question is if the scheme will replace the State pension. Ministers say it will not but these are the same politicians who promised to abolish the USC and we all know how that turned out. Workers are right to be sceptical unless there is a cast-iron guarantee that auto-enrolment is a top-up and not a replacement. People will rightly fear that the State pension is being hollowed out. Independent Ireland believes that, as a basic principle of new policy measures, people will need certainty, fairness and, above all, fairness. The scheme as I see it fails on all three counts. I call on the Government to come clean even at this late stage to put guarantees in place and stop shifting the burden onto the shoulders of workers and small businesses.

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