Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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305. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if he will address queries raised in correspondence (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22740/25]

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 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 enrol 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.

The concept of Automatic Enrolment has been debated for over 25 years in this country. There was a major ‘strawman’ public consultation on it in 2018, followed by a series of Government decisions between 2019 and last year that settled the design of the system. The legislative basis for implementing the new system was debated in the first half of 2024 and enacted by the Oireachtas last July. It is now time to implement it and that is being done in line with the legislation. I recently announced the system will commence from the 1st January 2026.

My Future Fund will be a transformative scheme for our people. When implemented, the new system will ensure that every employee will have access to a system that will enable them to build retirement savings in order to sustain their standard of living after their long years working in paid employment.

I hope this clarifies matters for the Deputy.