John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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86. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection to outline the planned work programme over the next seven months to ensure that auto enrolment is operational on 1 January 2026; if he will confirm when the board of the National Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings Authority will be appointed; when he expects the tender process for investment managers to be completed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26215/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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The 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. I recently announced the system will commence from 1st January 2026.

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 more per year (across all employments), and who are not actively contributing to a supplementary pension scheme through their employer's payroll. 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 My Future Fund by voluntarily opting in if they wish to do so.

Implementation of 'My Future Fund' is well underway with progress being made across several workstreams. A new public body called the National Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings Authority (NAERSA) is being established under the aegis of the Department of Social Protection to run the new scheme. A number of senior executive positions, including the CEO, as well as the positions of members of NAERSA’s board are on track to be filled by Q3 of this year at the latest. The CEO and Board positions are currently being advertised on the publicjobs platform.

A contract was signed on 9th October 2024 with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) for the provision of a managed service to operate the administration of the AE system. My Department and TCS are currently working closely with the Revenue Commissioners and the Payroll Software Developers Association (PSDA) to build the payroll-based systems that the operation of My Future Fund will be based on.

Separately, the evaluation of responses to the tendering exercise for three investment management firms, who will invest the contributions of participants, has recently been completed. It is expected that contracts will be awarded to the preferred bidders by the end of Q2 or early Q3.

Parallel to these workstreams, a three-phased communications strategy continues to be rolled out, with the current focus being on awareness raising with employers. Thousands of employers and related professionals in HR and payroll have been directly reached through webinars, conferences and in person stakeholder meetings in recent months. The second phase of the strategy commences this summer with the launch of an advertising campaign on multiple media platforms. Additional campaigns targeted at employers and employees will be run before and after the launch in January.

I hope this clarifies matters for the Deputy.