2026-01-15

9. Deputy James O'Connor asked the Minister for Social Protection the number of employees in County Cork registered with My Future Fund; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2683/26]

Auto-enrolment is a significant change for people who are in employment and preparing for pensions. It has been up and running since the beginning of the year, as the Minister will be aware, and the first pay packs are arriving in. It is very visible there. Can the Minister give an outline of the number of people who are registered at this point, and, in particular, the figures for Cork?

I thank Deputy Moynihan for raising this issue. As he knows, we made a commitment to introduce an automatic enrolment retirement savings system. The aim of introducing automatic enrolment is to address the pension coverage gap that exists in Ireland and, in particular, to provide workers with access to a quality assured retirement savings scheme, thereby giving greater comfort and security regarding their retirement income. My Future Fund commenced on 1 January 2026. More than 763,000 employees who were not actively contributing to a qualifying pension or PRSA through payroll have now been automatically enrolled in My Future Fund. That includes 75,468 employees in County Cork. The collection of employer and employee contributions is now under way. It is operating in line with the design and build of the system. The contributions are being topped up by the State and are being transferred to the investment managers for investment. The myfuturefund.ie portal is available to both employers and employees to access various services and will in time allow participants to view their account. This outcome is reflective of the huge effort made by officials in my Department and other stakeholders, including payroll providers and employers, in advance of the launch of My Future Fund. This is a significant and positive result which will ultimately provide employees with greater comfort and security regarding their retirement income.

With more than 760,000 people to be enrolled across the country, and I hear the figure of more than 75,000 people in County Cork, are they all registered and up and running on it or are gaps emerging in places where employers have not registered and people are not yet registered for various reasons? If gaps are emerging, can the Minister outline where they are and if they are in particular sectors or concern large or small employers? Can the Minister please give an overview on this?

At this point, we have 94,062 employers registered, with 700,256 employees registered. There is a gap between 700,256 and 763,000 and we are working to address that by engaging in further information campaigns with employers. The call centre dealing with this has been open since 1 January. It has taken 4,620 calls and 3,748 online chats. Of those queries, 57% have been from employers, 21% from participants and 15% from agents. The numbers are continuing to climb every day. At this point, I think a 92% response from employers is very positive one month into the scheme. We are continuing to engage, and the National Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings Authority, NAERSA, will engage, to ensure we give everybody the opportunity to enrol in My Future Fund to give the security it will make available in a post-retirement situation. We are very focused on that and on seeing it through. The operating body for the My Future Fund, NAERSA, understands the priority the Department gives this matter.

In relation to the gaps emerging, it would be interesting to know if these are in particular sectors or geographical, if there is a little bit more information on this, as well as how quickly, or otherwise, the gaps might be closing. The Minister might not have the information now, so it is okay if he is able to send it on afterwards. I have been discussing this with people locally and a number of different issues have been emerging. For example, where people are not registered but will be at some stage in the future, there will be a catch-up time. This is because there would be an expectation that 1 January payments would be made. Would a lump sum be taken from a pay packet on the first one if a catch-up is being done? A second issue has to do with a means test and if somebody's situation changes in the future. People are asking me whether, if they are applying for a county council grant to repair the roof or whatever it might be in ten or 15 years' time, the lump sum in question, perhaps from a pension fund, will be taken into account as part of a means test. These are the kinds of questions people have been asking and I would like to get clarity on them, please.

To come back on those figures briefly, the Minister referred to just under 100,000 employers having signed up to the scheme and over 700,000 participants. This gives me a sense that the average number of employees per business that has signed up is about seven. I would like to get a sense of whether the Minister has an understanding of the spectrum of sizes of employers and the number of employees per employer that have signed up to the scheme. Is it disproportionately small businesses, for example, or retail and hospitality businesses? What has been the feedback from employers? In particular, I am just conscious that the regulations that came in at the end of the year, just about a week before the launch of auto-enrolment, changed how employers dealt with the auto-enrolment question and how they were giving pension provision to employees. I would just like to hear from the Minister regarding the different small businesses or the spectrum of different employers that exists by number of employees.

In relation to the breakdown of employers and employees registered, we will certainly provide those figures when we get through this period of bedding in and NAERSA will be in a position to provide them. I do not think we can just divide the number of employees by employers in terms of saying it is seven. Multiple types of employment and employers are registered.

An average.

I will go back and get some detail for Deputy Moynihan regarding his specific queries as well. I also encourage every Deputy in regard to this matter. We have the My Future Fund portal up and running and quite a number of scenarios are outlined in it in relation to people's questions. I will revert to the Deputy in relation to his specific queries.