Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal West, Sinn Fein)
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1461. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if he will disclose which groups have lobbied him regarding the Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Act 2024, the automatic enrolment of workers into pension schemes, the timing and implementation of automatic enrolment, including all documentation, correspondences, meetings and minutes of meetings with lobbyists related to automatic enrolment; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20525/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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The new Programme for Government contains a commitment to introduce the Automatic Enrolment (AE) Retirement Savings System. The legislative basis for implementing the new system was enacted last July. The aim of introducing AE is to address the pension coverage gap that exists in Ireland and to provide workers with greater comfort and security regarding their retirement savings.

The new system will be called 'My Future Fund'. It will automatically enroll all employees, aged between 23 and 60 years of age, who are earning €20,000 or above a year (across all employments), and who are not actively contributing to a supplementary pension scheme. Those who fall outside the age and earnings threshold – in other words, those aged between 18 and 22 or between 60 and 66, or who earn below €20,000, will be able to join the new retirement savings system by voluntarily opting in if they wish to do so.

Since my appointment as Minister for Social Protection on 23 January 2025, the following groups have lobbied me, as understood within the provisions of Section 5 of the Regulation of Lobbying Act 2015, on this matter:

• The Payroll Software Developers Association.

I hope this clarifies matters for the Deputy.