Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senators for bringing forward these amendments. I do not propose to accept them.

The membership of the board of the National Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings Authority, NAERSA, is not constituted on the basis of sectoral representation. Instead, it is based on what that person has to offer to the authority, and that is their skill set and experience.

One of the Senators mentioned gender balance. My record in ensuring there is a gender balance on State boards is there for all to see. I always, where I possibly can, make sure we have 50:50 representation on all State boards to which I appoint. It is done where at all possible. Sometimes, I manage to make it 60:40 in favour of female representation on the boards.

In light of its relevance to automatic enrolment, the Bill sets out that the board of NAERSA will contain a person who has "knowledge or experience in matters relating to the interests of employees." That person could well turn out to be a representative of ICTU or someone who would otherwise meet with the approval of trade unionists. However, it is important not to make this provision more specific than that. In fairness, we all know that trade unions and employer representatives have many opportunities to provide the Minister of the day with their views, because we meet them regularly.

I cannot accept the proposed amendments in this group. The Bill is already well considered and balanced when it comes to membership of the board. It is geared towards having the right people with the right expertise to run and oversee a retirement savings scheme, and everybody on the board will owe their duty to the authority alone. There are a lot of provisions in the Bill for investors to take account of our environmental, social, and governance, ESG, criteria.

I will again mention the gender gap. Automatic enrolment will represent a significant step in addressing existing pension coverage gaps in Ireland. It will result in hundreds of thousands of women being enrolled in a supplementary pension for the first time. In developing the final design, the Department has gender-proofed proposals to assess their impact on both men and women. Automatic enrolment will apply to all employees who meet the eligibility criteria, thereby giving women access to pensions in their own right. The system is going a considerable way to ensuring more women are brought into the savings system. The design of automatic enrolment ensures that there will be equality of access to supplementary pensions, in particular for those who are on low to average earnings, where pension coverage has traditionally been low. This is particularly relevant to women who have different experiences of employment in terms of employment rates, the prevalence of part-time work and lower earnings. For female and, indeed, male employees outside the age and earning criteria, the choice to opt-in to automatic enrolment will be made available to them. If they so choose, both their employer and the State will be compelled to make the matching and top-up contributions retrospectively.