{"id":374206,"date":"2026-03-31T05:56:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:56:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/374206\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T05:56:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:56:21","slug":"more-than-6600-employers-have-not-yet-signed-up-to-pensions-auto-enrolment-scheme-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/374206\/","title":{"rendered":"More than 6,600 employers have not yet signed up to pensions auto-enrolment scheme \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than 6,600 employers have not signed up with the State\u2019s new My Future Fund pensions<\/a> auto-enrolment<\/a> scheme, four months after registration started.<\/p>\n

The organisation overseeing the scheme, the National Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings Authority<\/a> (NAERSA), is chasing employers that have not registered.<\/p>\n

Ultimately those employers who have not signed up can be prosecuted. <\/p>\n

Minutes of NAERSA board meetings released under the Freedom of Information Act show discussion of efforts to ensure employer compliance with the scheme including a mitigation and enforcement strategy that \u201cescalates in severity\u201d.<\/p>\n

Under My Future Fund, all employees not already in an occupational pension scheme, aged 23-60 and earning more than \u20ac20,000 a year, will be automatically enrolled.<\/p>\n

The starting contribution rate is 1.5 per cent per employee\/1.5 per cent per employer, and 0.5 per cent from the Government. Membership for workers is compulsory for the first six months, after which employees can opt out.<\/p>\n

Employers that are not eligible for an exemption from the scheme through the existence of a sufficient occupational pension scheme for staff \u2013 and that fail to register with My Future Fund \u2013 can be pursued by NAERSA.<\/p>\n

The registration portal for employers opened on December 1st last, in advance of employer and employee pension contributions beginning from the start of 2026. <\/p>\n

Figures provided to The Irish Times by NAERSA last week show the vast majority of eligible employers \u2013 108,894 \u2013 have signed up to the scheme.<\/p>\n

There is a combined total of 768,381 employees participating in the scheme. <\/p>\n

Pension contributions from employers and workers stood at a combined \u20ac157,873,083 last week, with NAERSA saying this has exceeded projections. <\/p>\n

NAERSA said it has \u201cidentified 6,647 employers who have not registered with the My Future Fund portal but have eligible participants\u201d and also said \u201cnew employers are joining the scheme on a weekly basis\u201d.<\/p>\n

Minutes from a board meeting on January 5th say those present discussed the issue of employers who had not yet registered and how this was necessary \u201cprimarily to enable the employer to remit the payments to NAERSA\u201d.<\/p>\n

The organisation\u2019s head of compliance and reviews, Thomas O\u2019Hara, is said to have outlined the compliance process and how there is an option of seeking prosecution of employers found to be in breach of the legislation underpinning pension auto-enrolment.<\/p>\n

NAERSA confirmed last week that no prosecutions for noncompliance have been initiated as yet.<\/p>\n

At the January meeting O\u2019Hara offered an update on \u201ckey operational risks\u201d including employer noncompliance. <\/p>\n

The document also says: \u201cThe Board discussed the potential for prosecution for noncompliance, noting that NAERSA will support employers to be compliant with the legislation however where an employer is not compliant, the provisions of the Act, up to prosecution will be used.\u201d<\/p>\n

The minutes from a board meeting on February 6th say that NAERSA chief executive Dermot Griffin provided an update on the approximately 5,700 employers that had not registered on the portal at the time. The document says that even if they are not registered the company implementing the auto-enrolment scheme, TCS, receives payroll files and \u201cthis figure [5,700] may increase following the receipt of monthly payroll files.\u201d<\/p>\n

It adds: \u201cThe CEO confirmed this is a high priority for the Compliance Team, who are contacting employers directly.\u201d<\/p>\n

The board was told that at that point the team had collected around \u20ac1 million from 153 employers \u201cfollowing compliance engagement\u201d. <\/p>\n

The minutes say: \u201cAn analysis of noncompliance calls shows that one in three believed Revenue would make the collections. The Board was satisfied that compliance will naturally increase when misunderstandings are addressed.\u201d<\/p>\n

NAERSA told The Irish Times that employer contributions paid after \u201ccompliance intervention\u201d efforts stood at \u20ac1,553,116 as of February 28th. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 6,600 employers have not signed up with the State\u2019s new My Future Fund pensions auto-enrolment scheme,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[72,176,61,60,7038,174,175],"class_list":["post-374206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-finance","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-irish-politics","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374206","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=374206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}