Ireland’s automatic enrolment pension system, MyFutureFund, was formally introduced on 1 January.

In an update published by the Department of Social Protection, Ireland Minister for Social Protection, Dara Calleary, said more than 77,000 employers, covering around 645,000 employees, had registered on the MyFutureFund employer portal since its launch on 1 December, ahead of the system going live.

Subsequently, starting with January pay dates, employees enrolled in MyFutureFund will begin building retirement savings under the new framework.

For every €3 saved by an employee, a total of €7 is credited once employer and state contributions are added, with funds invested in regulated investment options and payable at retirement.

Administration fees are set at €0.55 per week and apply only when contributions are active, while average investment management fees are expected to be just under 0.04 per cent of assets under management.

Combined charges are projected to remain below the government’s 0.5 per cent target over the lifetime of a typical savings plan.

Calleary also pointed to the flexibility of the now-live system, with employees able to opt out, suspend contributions and carry a single pension pot from job to job under a “pot follows the member” approach.

With the employee portal open, members will be able to view their own contributions alongside those made by employers and the state once processed by the National Auto-Enrolment Retirement Savings Authority (NAERSA) from mid-January.

Employees will also be able to select investment plans, monitor returns and exercise opt-out or suspension options.

However, the introduction of minimum contribution standards for occupational schemes has gone ahead despite warnings and criticism from parts of the pensions industry.

The Irish Association of Pension Funds (IAPF) had urged the department to consult more fully before bringing in the new regulations, warning that any rules that “attempt to create a simplistic comparison” between occupational schemes and MyFutureFund risk being flawed.

In a letter to the department, IAPF chief executive, Joyce Brennan, cautioned that proceeding without “full and meaningful” consultation would create “significant disruption for occupational pensions” and could undermine decades of progress in improving retirement outcomes.

Similar concerns were raised by the Irish Institute of Pensions Management (IIPM), which warned that the timing and design of the minimum contribution regulations risk disruption to Ireland’s occupational pensions landscape unless more time is allowed for consultation and implementation.

In a letter to Calleary, the institute said it was broadly supportive of minimum contribution standards in principle but argued that employers and the pensions industry need sufficient time to understand and apply the changes.

Despite the criticism, Calleary said the exemption standards are necessary to ensure that schemes outside MyFutureFund are at least as favourable for employees as the auto-enrolment system during its phased introduction.

He stressed that NAERSA’s initial focus will be on supporting compliance, including assessing contribution levels over a three-month period and engaging with employers whose schemes fall below the required 3.5 per cent threshold.

“The enactment of these regulations will reassure workers that they will, either through their company’s own occupational scheme or through MyFutureFund, have the ability to participate in a decent retirement savings scheme,” the minister added.

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