Businesses planning to move staff on to their existing pension schemes to avoid being captured by the incoming automatic enrolment system are being urged to take action well before the new State-run portal goes live in December.
Department of Finance officials have confirmed that auto-enrolment (AE) instructions will be issued in early December, targeting an estimated 800,000 workers in the Republic that are not currently part of a workplace or private pension plan.
However, any cases where pension contributions have been made through payroll in the 13 weeks prior to that date will be exempt from the AE regime, which is called My Future Fund, they said.
Many companies are known to be planning to move AE-eligible workers into their own existing defined contribution pension plans.
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“Companies intending to use their existing plan to achieve AE compliance, as many of them are, should get their ducks in a row well before the official January implementation date if they want to get their staff safely embedded with their own plans,” said Shane O’Farrell, director of workplace markets at Irish Life’s employer solutions unit.
“Employers should aim to have the first pension contributions for newly enrolled staff by mid-November. This will avoid the risk that employees are enrolled into the State AE model by default, because they lack a history of pension contributions in their current employment.”
There has been some concern among businesses that there would be little time to enter and cross-check details of workers being included in the AE scheme, as the online portal is only set to go live in December, according to sources.
However, a spokeswoman for the department said that employers “will have a number of weeks” to use the AE portal and put in information, including preferred payment methods, before the official go-live date.
“Employers will have a number of weeks to do this before go-live, giving ample time for them to ensure that they are able to meet their legal requirements and avoid the risk of fines, penalties and potential prosecution,” she said.
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Meanwhile, the department is planning to issue invitations to employers and representative groups “in the coming days” to an information event on the AE regime. “The event will be livestreamed and recorded to maximise outreach and will be supplemented by department-led webinars,” the spokeswoman said.
The Irish Times first reported on Wednesday that former National Lottery chief executive Dermot Griffin has been selected to head up the agency that will oversee My Future Fund, the National Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings Authority (Naersa) – marking a major milestone in the project. It will be chaired by Roma Burke, an experienced actuary with extensive knowledge of the pensions industry.
The introduction of the AE system has been the subject of a number of delays in recent years. The system is now set to start on January 1st.
AE will apply to workers aged between 23 and 60 who earn at least €20,000 a year across one or more jobs and who are not already members of an occupational pension scheme.
Employers and employees will each initially contribute 1.5 per cent of gross earnings to their pension pot, with the Government adding a further 0.5 per cent. The contributions are due to increase in stages, reaching 6 per cent and 2 per cent respectively in year 10.
Under the auto-enrolment scheme, funds will be managed by three investment providers – Irish Life Investment Managers, Amundi and Blackrock. Indian information technology company Tata Consultancy Services was hired in 2024 to build and run the system.
My Future Fund is expected to hold more than €20 billion of assets on behalf of beneficiaries within 10 years, rising potentially to more than €300 billion over 30-40 years, according to the Government.
