At the end of September, Heather Humphreys, Irish Minister for Social Protection announced that pension auto-enrolment would begin from 30th September 2025.

Opportunely, Jerry Moriarty appeared on the VFM Podcast to tell us that he wrote his first proposal for the scheme 20 years ago.

Officially it is for 800,000 employees though Jerry reckons that there are about 60,000 on top of that (since the Government last had a look).

The system will involve just a state scheme with Tata being given the administration contract and the investment contracts still to be tendered for.

People will join on a “pot follows member” basis with Government organising contributions from the outset.

The system will be called “My Future Fund ” which is apparently “catchy” and could lead to people thinking their AE fund is their future.

The fund will be managed with four managers with members having their money managed a quarter by each.

Under the terms of the scheme, which applies to workers aged between 23 and 60 who earn at least €20,000 per annum across one or more jobs, employers and employees will each initially contribute 1.5 per cent of gross earnings to the individual’s pension pot, with the Government adding a further 0.5 per cent.

The aim is to get to 12% + 2% from the Government by 2035.

You can hear Jerry talk about this here.

It sounds likely that the system won’t kick off for everyone from day one (though there is no staging timetable as yet.

And the discussion of the pros and cons of moving Ireland to a DC system sounds the kind of discussion that was happening in the UK 25 years ago. This from the Irish Times.

Possibly a bigger concern for future retirees in Ireland and more broadly is that under the now-dominant defined contribution pension model, the investment decisions that will determine how adequate income is in retirement are being made by individual scheme members, many of who are woefully ill-prepared to make those decisions.

Of course, Mercer and its peers are the companies that were advising employers as they moved away from more secure defined benefit pension schemes which promised workers a set proportion of their earnings in retirement to the current model that is altogether riskier for those workers.

The state pension age is 66, the auto-enrolment scheme will only allow retirement at SPA. Meanwhile there is an occupational pension system for employers who voluntarily fund a scheme in and out of which auto-enrolled members may be moved. The occupational system can involve compulsory contributions and unlike the AE system , there are flexibilities for members in taking their benefits.

There is tax-free cash which can be taken as a lump-sum, there is an annuity purchase option but the Irish system sounds like it’s no further towards providing pensions. The approved retirement fund into which people can transfer – is a drawdown option for those with decent sized pots.

Jerry tells us that for the first few years, benefits from the AE system will be taken as cash (rather than offer a pension), though he thinks that a more sophisticated approach will develop over time.

Frankly, the Irish have missed an opportunity to bring in a pension saving system and adopted a lowest common denominator system that misses the mark. Jerry is to be congratulated to have spanned the length and breadth of the system’s development but he must be a little disappointed that while the process has been lengthy, the solution doesn’t have much breadth.