Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

I thank Deputy McCormack, and Deputy Brennan for tabling this question. The implementation of My Future Fund from 1 January 2026 will fulfil a key programme for Government commitment to ensure that more than 750,000 workers are brought into a retirement savings scheme for the first time, giving those workers more security in their retirement. There has been extensive engagement with employers and representative organisations from the very outset, including during the early design phase of My Future Fund. The phasing of the roll-out, the incremental approach to levying contributions was, for example, specifically designed in response to employer feedback.

Over the past 18 months we have hosted thousands of employers and related professions through many webinars, conferences and in-person stakeholder meetings, with more planned over the coming weeks. We have also implemented an extensive advertising campaign aimed specifically at employers to show them how easy it will be to implement auto-enrolment. In fact, it is as easy as enabling a health insurance or credit union deduction.

Separately, over the past year, my team in the Department has worked incredibly hard and held weekly project meetings with payroll providers who provide payroll services to many employers. We have worked closely with them to ensure that deductions can be implemented in a streamlined manner. We have also made a wealth of information available through our AE hub at gov.ie/auto-enrolment and brought this to the attention of all the representative organisations. This material includes a large range of YouTube videos to explain the system and how it will work. More than 300,000 companies are registered with the Companies Registration Office. They were issued a My Future Fund mailshot in April this year. The Department will be writing to all companies and tax agents that are registered on the Revenue ROS system in early December. That mailshot will be supported by the NAERSA contact centre.

It is important to note that, unlike other pension schemes, employers will have very little to do to facilitate auto-enrolment being implemented because the new State agency, the National Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings Authority, NAERSA, has been established to oversee and operate the system which will include taking care of all the administrative processes around auto-enrolment, contribution collection, investment and providing access to accounts and information.

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