Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

All employers have had seven years to get ready for and get used to this. We listened to their feedback on stepping the contributions and not introducing big contributions from the beginning.

I confirm that in the Department of Social Protection, the Estimates in respect of payments to the organisations do include costs for, say, community employment and Tús where they arise. We have engaged at senior official level and with the Secretaries General of other Departments advising them that automatic enrolment was coming in on 1 January and that they needed to ensure provision. I cannot account for every other Department, but, on the back of this discussion, I will be reminding all my colleagues this afternoon that this is happening.

It is a huge event for 750,000 to 800,000 workers who currently have no pension provision. This is not a silver bullet. I want to be very clear that My Future Fund is not going to be the answer to everybody’s problems, but it is happening on 1 January.

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