{"id":250842,"date":"2026-01-18T08:23:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T08:23:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/250842\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T08:23:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T08:23:17","slug":"auto-enrolment-pension-scheme-attracts-92-of-employers-and-700000-employees-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/250842\/","title":{"rendered":"Auto-enrolment pension scheme attracts 92% of employers and 700,000 employees \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ninety-two per cent of employers and 700,000 employees have been signed up for the auto-enrolment<\/a> pension<\/a> scheme for private-sector employees that started on January 1st.<\/p>\n

Minister for Social Protection Dara Calleary<\/a> told the D\u00e1il how 94,062 employers and 700,256 employees were registered and \u20ac14.47 million had been collected to date.<\/p>\n

The My Future Fund auto enrolment State scheme<\/a> applies to workers aged between 23 and 60 and earning more than \u20ac20,000 if they are not already a member of a private pension scheme.<\/p>\n

The employer contributes the same amount as the employee and the State makes a top-up payment.<\/p>\n

Mr Calleary said \u201cportals are available to employers and will be available to employees in the coming fortnight to access a range of services and to check on their accounts\u201d. <\/p>\n

The contact centre, open since December 1st, had dealt with 4,620 calls and 3,748 online chats, he said. About 57 per cent were from employers, 21 per cent from participants and 15 per cent from agents, he said.<\/p>\n

Sinn F\u00e9in<\/a> social protection spokeswoman Louise O\u2019Reilly<\/a> said that between 70,000 and 80,000 people were not covered, but people had clearly heard about the scheme and signed up.<\/p>\n

She expressed concern held by senior managers of State-funded agencies providing public services as these were also obliged to contribute to employees\u2019 pensions. <\/p>\n

Ms O\u2019Reilly, a former trade union organiser, said she did not often come into the D\u00e1il to \u201cstand up for management\u201d. However, \u201ctheir funding was not increased but their obligation had\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Some State funded disability bodies warn over service curtailment due to auto-enrolment costs<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Senior managers in State-funded organisations wanted to know \u201cif they had to make a choice between services and pension, where the Minister wants them to make that cut\u201d.<\/p>\n

She said they wanted their workers to be in a pension scheme. \u201cThey equally want to be able to provide the services.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Minister said he \u201cobviously\u201d did not want any chief executive to be in that position. <\/p>\n

He raised the issue across a range of Government departments and State agencies, including Revenue<\/a> and the Attorney General, and would continue to engage with them.<\/p>\n

His officials had also raised it at secretary general-level with every department about \u201cthe responsibilities of agencies under auto-enrolment\u201d. <\/p>\n

But he said: \u201cWe cannot dictate the budget allocations for other departments.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ninety-two per cent of employers and 700,000 employees have been signed up for the auto-enrolment pension scheme for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[12156,72,16570,176,61,60,125672,1612,174,175,11522,3415],"class_list":{"0":"post-250842","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-auto-enrolment","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-dara-calleary","11":"tag-finance","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-louise-oreilly","15":"tag-pension","16":"tag-personal-finance","17":"tag-personalfinance","18":"tag-revenue-commissioners","19":"tag-sinn-fein"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}