The Pensions Authority does not receive any declarations and does not approve any transfers to overseas arrangements for individual scheme members and individual PRSA contributors. The requirements to be in a position to process such a transfer payment to an overseas arrangement are on the trustees of the pension scheme or the PRSA provider, as the case may be, and are set out in the Occupational Pension Schemes and Personal Retirement Savings Accounts (Overseas Transfer Payments) Regulations, 2003: www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2003/si/716
At a scheme (i.e. IORP) level, the authorisation requirements to operate an IORP on a cross-border basis within the European Economic Area (EEA), including for transfers between transferring and receiving IORPs, are set out in Part XII of the Pensions Act, 1990, as amended. The IORP II Directive was transposed into Irish law on 22 April 2021 under the European Union (Occupational Pension Schemes) Regulations 2021 and Part XII of Pensions Act, 1990 was amended to provide for the requirements for IORP cross-border activity within the EEA.
At the end of 2022, which is the most up-to-date information available, there were 31 active cross-border IORPs operating within the EEA, 9 of which have a connection to Ireland as follows:
• 4 active cross-border IORPs are regulated by the Pensions Authority i.e. are authorised in Ireland and include members in other Member States.
• 9 active cross-border IORPs are regulated by a competent authority in another Member State and have cross border activity with Ireland i.e. have members in Ireland. The home member states for these IORPS are Belgium (8) and Luxembourg (1).
I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.
