Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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234. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if there is a working group tasked with implementing A Roadmap for Pensions Reform 2018-2023; if so, the membership of such a working group; the terms of reference of the working group; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [24110/18]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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In its ‘Roadmap for Pensions Reform 2018-2023’, the Government detailed specific measures under six strands that, taken together, will modernise our pension system while continuing to target resources at those most in need. These six strands are:

Strand 1 - Reform of the State Pension including the Total Contributions Approach;

Strand 2 - A New Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System;

Strand 3 - Improving Governance and Regulation including the EU IORPS II Directive;

Strand 4 - Measures to Support Defined Benefit Scheme Sustainability;

Strand 5 - Public Service Pension Reform; and

Strand 6 - Supporting Fuller Working Lives.

From these strands stem a total of 43 individual actions, each action having a specified owner and date of delivery. Given the wide breadth of actions included under the plan, action owners separately include three Government Departments, two Government agencies, a public body and some interdepartmental structures (where policy responsibilities span a number of departments). Accordingly, a number of governance structures have been developed to oversee progress with development and implementation.

Ultimately these individual arrangements and progress generally on the implementation of these reforms is being overseen by Government through Cabinet Committee A – Economy, which is chaired by the Taoiseach and consists of Ministers with responsibility for pension related matters. As is normal, this is supported in turn by a Senior Officials Group comprising senior officials from the relevant Departments.

In delivering on the actions contained within the reform plan, extensive engagement will be undertaken with sectoral interests including employer and employee representatives, advocate groups, the pensions industry and the general public. To this end, I can confirm that separate national consultation processes will be undertaken in relation to the two most fundamental reforms contained in the Roadmap. These are the introduction of the ‘Total Contributions Approach’ for the State pension contributory from 2020 and the development of a new automatic enrolment retirement savings system for employees without supplementary pensions coverage. This process has already been initiated with the recent launch of the Total Contributions Approach national consultation. It is anticipated that submissions and feedback received from all interest groups over the coming months will help inform the design of both of these systems.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.