Catherine Ardagh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for being in the Seanad today and introducing the legislation. I am very proud that it is a Fianna Fáil–Fine Gael Government that is introducing and spearheading it.

My colleague Senator Sherlock just described pension adequacy. It is for reasons of pension adequacy that the legislation is being introduced. You have to start somewhere. I remember sitting in the Seanad as social protection spokesperson in 2016 when then social protection Minister, Leo Varadkar, started the conversation about automatic enrolment. His Department started working on it at that time. The Bill is really important and so many workers will reap the benefits. As my colleague said, it will not be for another 30 or 40 years, but I hope the current Minister will be thanked down the line.

As we know, automatic enrolment involves a quasi-mandatory pension system whereby employees, subject to certain parameters, are automatically enrolled into the quality-assured retirement savings system, with freedom of choice to opt out. It is designed in this way to increase supplementary pension coverage, especially among those who have not joined a pension system due to inertia rather than unaffordability. Inertia can be observed in the current data on supplementary pension coverage, which shows that 56% of those in employment have an active supplementary pension while just 35% of the private-sector workers have such coverage.

The Minister went through every section of the Bill in detail. It passed through the Dáil on 22 May and I hope it will pass through this House without any issues. Its enactment will pave the way for around 800,000 workers to be brought into the retirement savings scheme for the first time. This implies a huge number of people will have additional income when they need it in their retirement. Indeed, the implementation of the automatic enrolment retirement savings system represents what is probably the single biggest reform of the pension system in the history of the State. It is a very bold move. We have been talking about it for nearly 25 years and it is finally being done.

No systems are perfect. In this regard, I agree with my colleague on having a review of how the system is going. I presume that will be done annually by the Minister's Department. While no system starts life perfect and every system must be tweaked, you have to start something, and the system we are introducing will really assist workers down the line in retirement.

As has been said, the State pension system will remain the bedrock of the Irish pension system, but I hope future Irish pensioners will have that bit more and reap the benefits of their contribution to Irish life when they retire.

While some employers provide their employees with occupational pension plans and other retirement savings arrangements, there is a large gap in retirement savings which this Bill aims to fill. Pensions are complex and people tend to put their pensions on the long finger. In this regard, I did a tally of my friends. I am 42 and not even half of us have a pension. Fortunately, I will have one from the Oireachtas, but that is a rarity. These are people have been working in the private sector for most of their working lives, from the age of 20, so they are 20 years without pension coverage. They are now trying to scramble together pensions. They will be in a worse position than newer entrants who will be entering the system in their 20s.

The system is long overdue. I congratulate the Minister and her officials for introducing it to the House. I hope it will go through seamlessly and be commenced without any delays. Well done to the Minister.