Written answers
Tuesday, 14 October 2025
Department of Finance
Pensions Reform
John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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366. To ask the Minister for Finance the proposals that have been implemented and not implemented, respectively from a report (details supplied); and when the proposals not yet implemented will be implemented. [55343/25]
Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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The Interdepartmental Pensions Reform and Taxation Group (IDPRTG) was established to carry out a number of tasks set out in the Roadmap for Pensions Reform 2018-2023. The Roadmap set out the need to promote long-term pension saving to address income adequacy in retirement, in particular for low income earners.
The IDPRTG is chaired by the Department of Finance and includes representatives from the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation; the Department of Social Protection; the Office of the Revenue Commissioners; and the Pensions Authority. In 2020 the IDPRTG published a report which set out a list of actions to aid in the harmonisation and simplification of supplemental pensions. A number of the reforms suggested by the IDPRTG 2020 report been implemented or are actively being progressed.
In total, 11 actions have been completed, namely:
- the abolition of the Approved Minimum Retirement Fund (Finance Act 2021);
- the inclusion of an Approved Retirement Fund option for remaining death-in-service benefits after the payment of the lump sum (Finance Act 2021);
- removal of the “15-year rule”, which prevented transfers from Occupational Pension Schemes to PRSAs where an individual had more than 15 years of benefits (Finance Act 2021);
- changes to the treatment of employer contributions to PRSAs (Finance Acts 2022 & 2024);
- introduction of taxation provisions for the Pan-European Pension Product (Finance Act 2022);
- the cessation of authorisation of new Retirement Annuity Contract products (Finance Act 2023);
- removal of the upper age limit for accessing PRSA assets, facilitating a “whole-of-life” PRSA (Finance Act 2023);
- design of a financial incentive for the automatic enrolment retirement savings system;
- introduction of taxation provisions for the automatic enrolment retirement savings system (Finance Act 2024);
- Pensions Authority review of the PRSA product approval process and the need for pre-approval in the case of non-material changes to an existing PRSA product;
- Pensions Authority review of the use of / need for multiple PRSAs by individuals.
The IDPRTG has provided a valuable cross departmental forum where key policy stakeholders can engage, and the Group continues its work to bring about further reforms of the supplementary pension landscape over the medium to longer term.
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