{"id":144487,"date":"2025-09-15T08:14:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T08:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/144487\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T08:14:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T08:14:11","slug":"more-than-one-in-four-have-no-pension-or-retirement-plans-in-place-survey-finds-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/144487\/","title":{"rendered":"More than one in four have no pension or retirement plans in place, survey finds \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than one in four Irish adults have no financial plans for their retirement while the number without a private pension<\/a> has increased significantly since last year, according to new research from the consumer watchdog. <\/p>\n

The study from the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission<\/a> (CCPC), published on Monday, also points to high levels of regret among those with pensions that they did not begin paying into them sooner. <\/p>\n

It found 26 per cent of people have no financial arrangements at all for their retirement, up from 21 per cent last year<\/a>, while almost one-third of pension holders regret not starting contributions earlier. <\/p>\n

Of those who do not have a pension, affordability and putting it on the long finger were cited as the top reasons \u2013 25 per cent of respondents said they could not afford it and 19 per cent said they simply had not got around to it. <\/p>\n

The annual research also highlights low levels of understanding of the issue with just over one in three pension holders unsure how pensions work and more than half lacking confidence in their pension\u2019s ability to provide a good standard of living in retirement. <\/p>\n

The research also found that just 46 per cent of those with a pension review their annual pension statement, a fall of 6 per cent when compared to last year\u2019s research. <\/p>\n

While 60 per cent of Irish adults have some form of pension a \u201csignificant\u201d 26 per cent remain completely unprepared, the CCPC said. <\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, pension ownership is lowest among 18- to 24-year-olds with just 18 per cent saying they had started planning for retirement. The CCPC said it was worrying that 21 per cent of those aged between 45 and 54 also report having no retirement arrangements in place. <\/p>\n

Of the one in four without a retirement plan, 61 per cent say they will rely on the State pension to fund their retirement \u2013 a noticeable increase from 53 per cent in 2024 and 43 per cent in 2023. <\/p>\n

The CCPC said such growing dependence on the State pension was accompanied by a sharp decline in expectations around rental income, which dropped from 22 per cent in 2022 to just 9 per cent in 2025. This suggests a significant shift away from property-based retirement strategies and highlights increased vulnerability among those without private pension arrangements. <\/p>\n

Retirement expectations are also shifting with only 19 per cent expecting to retire at 65, compared to 25 per cent in 2024, while a similar proportion of men and women, 20 per cent and 21 per cent respectively, now expect to work until age 70 or beyond. <\/p>\n

Financial advice continues to be underused, it found, with two-thirds of those surveyed stating that they have never spoken to a financial adviser about their retirement plans. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis year\u2019s research confirms that Ireland\u2019s pensions gap remains a concern, even among those just a decade or two away from retirement,\u201d said the CCPC\u2019s director of communications Grainne Griffin.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith over a quarter of adults still without any retirement plan in place, and others regretting not starting sooner, the message is clear: it\u2019s never too early, or too late, to take action.\u201d <\/p>\n

Ms Griffin stressed how important it was for people to take control of their financial future and suggested a first step would be to calculate how much was needed in retirement. <\/p>\n

\u201cA good rule of thumb is to aim for a retirement income of 50 to 60 per cent of your pre-retirement income,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than one in four Irish adults have no financial plans for their retirement while the number without…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[64,63,99,98031,186,1794,184,185],"class_list":{"0":"post-144487","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-competition-and-consumer-protection-commission-ccpc","12":"tag-finance","13":"tag-pension","14":"tag-personal-finance","15":"tag-personalfinance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}