Laura Harmon (Labour)

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. I will be echoing a lot of the points made by Senator Cosgrove. I welcome the roll-out of the new auto-enrolment scheme. This something we in the Labour Party have long been calling for. I also welcome the appointment of Patricia King, former general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, ICTU, to the board. ICTU has a positive role to play here. This is something the Labour Party highlighted as this Bill was being progressed through the Oireachtas.

This scheme will work to address disparities in pension provision. The 2024 CSO statistics show us that those aged 55 to 69 had the most coverage at 75%, while those aged 25 to 34 had less than 60%. It has been clear for some time now that Ireland's voluntary approach to pension savings is failing. Countless workers are being left without coverage after working their entire adult lives. This is unacceptable. Ireland has been lagging behind for too long. We were the last OECD country to introduce an auto-enrolment system. ICTU highlighted that 811,000 workers are without a workplace pension. Each and every one of these people will feel the impact of this delay.

There are also considerations that must be accounted for come January. This scheme should add to and not take away from any existing provisions and should never become a replacement for State pensions. We need to hear assurances for those contributing to the new scheme that this will work to complement their pension and that they will not be subject to means tests for their State pension as a result. We have also seen that pension cover for self-employment contracts are insecure in nature. There needs to be cover for these individuals and a guarantee that they will be included in the auto-enrolment scheme. This is vital to prevent companies from placing workers on fabricated self-employment contracts as means of avoiding contributing to their pensions. Many have been left without pensions in recent years due to being placed on self-employment contracts, most notably in RTÉ.

Another group that needs to be accounted for is young workers. Despite PRSI contributions beginning at 16 in some cases, the minimum age threshold for inclusion in this scheme is 23. This leaves seven valuable years where workers could begin to build up their pension fund. Young workers are some of the most precarious in terms of their roles, so their inclusion needs to be an important consideration. The Labour Party proposed an amendment to this Bill when it was before the Oireachtas which aimed to prevent employers from winding up or freezing effective workplace pension schemes during the ten-year roll-out of the scheme. This was rejected by the Government, but we are continuing to call for safeguards that would ensure that this scheme has positive effects on workers and does not incentivise employers to scale back any existing entitlements.