Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

I thank all the Senators for their inputs this evening. I join with Senator O'Donovan and, indeed, all of the Senators in paying my tribute and my respect to former councillor, Patrick Gerard Murphy, on his passing. I express my sympathies. He was a brilliant representative, a courageous man and somebody who always had the good of Cork at his heart. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.

I have a very long script, full of technical stuff. I will try to deal with some of the queries and revert to the Senators. I thank Senators Rabbitte and O'Donovan for their welcome for the scheme. Senator Rabbitte had a lot of questions about the scheme in committee back in July. We tried to engage with her on that and obviously we answered a lot of those queries.

I might ask Senator McCormack, when is the right time? At this stage we are lucky. Our pension provision is relatively well-catered for as public service workers. When we have four workers for every person over the age of 65, do we wait until 2050, which scarily enough is not that far away, when we will have two workers for every person over 65 and when our State pension system, which will continue to be the bedrock, will become challenging? Do we continue to speak about pensioner poverty and not actually take the hard calls to get people engaged now? Pensions fry people's heads, especially younger people. When we are in our 20s and 30s, we all think that can wait, whether we can afford it or not. Senator Cosgrove made a good point that, when starting off in life, it is a difficult time. We are the last country in the OECD to implement an auto-enrolment such a scheme. Let us remember that. That is not something to be proud of. As our demographics change, we have to make the tough calls on that now.

On it being a boon to the pension industry, I do not think so. A total of 800,000 people are going to come into the pension industry for the first time ever. Because they are coming in on lot, we have seen already that in terms of our contracts with Irish Life, Amundi and BlackRock the administration fees that are going to be paid are much lower because we are bringing 800,000 people to the table, as opposed to each of those 800,000 people going separately. We have used the power of that 800,000 to get a much lower rate on the necessary administration fees. The pension industry is absolutely not happy with this. Pension providers certainly tried to resist this for long enough in terms of information.

I dealt with the NTMA issue because Your Future Fund is yours; it is not country's. It will be invested to maximise the return for you. Senator Curley raised the point about ethical investment. That is laid out in legislation. Section 74 of the Act is very clear in terms of ESG. I will be instructing NAERSA to be very awake to that, and not just ESG but to other priorities that people have that may not be within the ESG issue.

In response to Senators Cosgrove, Harmon and Crowe, I was absolutely delighted to see Patricia King come forward to the Commission for Public Service Appointments. Hundreds of people applied to be on the board of NAERSA, which was really interesting. There were exceptionally talented people with really good experience of big projects and small projects. I am delighted to see Patricia King appointed. She is one of an exceptionally talented board. She will take no nonsense on behalf of workers. I welcome that appointment.

In relation to self-employment, I went through the reasons it has not worked internationally in terms of the inability for them to register, but it is something I am very conscious of. The whole area of bogus self-employment, which was raised by the Labour Party Senators Cosgrove and Harmon and was raised in the Dáil last week, is something I will be tasking NAERSA to be vigilant to. The CEO of NAERSA began work this week. We have been very much awake to that.

In regard to young workers, as we embed and strengthen the system, we can look to this issue. It comes back to a point Senator Curley made. This is transferable. Your Future Fund is yours. You bring it with you from employment to employment. We are trying to make that a key part of it as we all go through multiple employments. The days of a job for life are gone. We need to make sure people own and have possession of their fund as soon as they start working and contributing PRSI. NAERSA should absolutely focus on that aspect.

In response to Senator Harmon, the contributory State pension is about €21,000 or €22,000 a year. That is a big drop for somebody on the average working wage at retirement. This is to add to that. The means test has been highlighted here this evening and in the Dáil last week. That is not an issue that will arise for some time, until that builds up. However, it is something I will be highlighting during my time as Minister to be aware to.

In response to Senator Crowe on the management fees issue, NAERSA is going to be a strong body in running this scheme. It is not going to come from the Exchequer. Equally, this will also be monitored by the Pensions Commission and the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman. Those owners of My Future Fund, those 810,000-odd people will have the same rights as anybody with a pension in terms of monitoring this.

Gabhaim buíochas le gach Seanadóir as an díospóireacht seo. Tá sé thar a bheith tábhachtach sna seachtainí romhainn, it is important that we start raising awareness of this and that, at the end of December, people will have deductions. Senator McCormack raised that issue. There is never a good time to have a deduction but this is a deduction that will get a top-up from the employer and a top-up from the State and will be available to people when they do not have the chance to raise extra income. When they are going into retirement, their chances to raise that necessary extra income to supplement their State income will come through the My Future Fund. The chance to have a good standard of living at a time when they do not have the opportunities to raise money as they may have while working will be there through My Future Fund. That is why we are doing it now.

I have asked the Department to change the tone of the communication so that people are not surprised and not shocked when that deduction happens. That deduction is a long-term investment in their family, in their selves and in their retirement.