The Programme for Government contains a commitment to introduce the Automatic Enrolment (AE) Retirement Savings System. The aim of introducing AE is to address the pension coverage gap that exists in Ireland and to provide workers with access to a quality assured retirement savings scheme, thereby giving greater comfort and security regarding their retirement income.
The new system - known as MyFutureFund - commenced on the 1 January 2026. Over 763,000 employees that weren't actively contributing to a qualifying pension or PRSA through payroll were eligible and were automatically enrolled in MyFutureFund.
Any analysis of administration fees would need to be undertaken in the context of all contributions made to a participant's fund rather than just the employee contributions. In addition, it would not be accurate nor sensible to use static data to calculate such fees given a participant's potential span of participation of up to 43 years.
The total administrative fee that any participant in MyFutureFund would pay over the span of their participation would depend on a very wide range of factors that are specific to each of those participants. These could include, among other things, their age, their earnings, inflation of those earnings over time, when they join, their duration in the scheme, any periods of opt-out or suspension and the duration of those, their level of contributions, any additional contributions that may be facilitated over the span of their participation, any transfers in or out of the scheme that may be facilitated over their span of participation, the level of fee that may be applicable at any period in time, etc. Accordingly, a realistic assessment of the total administration fees that any participant may incur over the span of their participation would have to include all of those factors relevant to their participation.
However, it is clear that the administration fee of 55 cent per week compares very favourably with similar fees in the best occupational pension schemes and is considerably better that the administration fees typically charged for PRSAs on an AUM basis.
When coupled with the investment management fee of less than 0.04% of assets under management (which is considerably less than those applicable to occupational pension schemes and a fraction of those applicable to PRSAs), it is clear that participants in MyFutureFund are getting the best value for money in the retirement savings market in Ireland.
I hope this clarifies matters for the Deputy.
