Minister for Social Protection update on Guidance to Employers in relation to the My Future Fund

The Minister states:

The implementation of My Future Fund from 1 January 2026 fulfils a key Programme for Government commitment which will bring more than 750,000 workers into a retirement savings scheme for the first time, giving theses workers more security in their retirement.

There has been extensive engagement with employers and their representative organisations from the very outset including during the design phase of My Future Fund. The phasing of the rollout and the incremental approach to levying contributions was, for example, specifically designed in response to employer feedback.

Over the past 18 months we have hosted thousands of employers and related professionals through many webinars, conferences and in person stakeholder meetings, with more planned over the remainder of this year and into next. We also implementing an extensive advertising campaign aimed specifically at employers to show them just how easy it is to implement auto-enrolment - in effect it is as easy as enabling a health insurance or credit union deduction.

Separately we have, over the past year, held weekly project meetings with payroll providers. As the Deputy may be aware most employers contract out their payrolls to these specialist providers, so we have worked very closely with them to ensure that deductions can be implemented in a streamlined manner.

We have also made a wealth of information available through our AE hub at www.gov.ie/autoenrolment and brought this to the attention of all of the representative organisations. This material includes a large range of YouTube videos that explain the system and how it will work.

Over 300,000 companies registered with the Companies Registration Office were issued a My Future Fund mailshot in early April this year, and the Department will be writing to all companies and tax agents registered on the Revenue ROS system in early December - this mailshot will be supported by the NAERSA Contact Centre.

Finally, it is important to note that, unlike other pension schemes, employers will have very little to do to facilitate auto-enrolment being implemented because a new state agency called the National Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings Authority (NAERSA) has been established to oversee and operate the new system. This includes taking care of all the administrative processes involved around enrolment, contribution collection, investment, and providing access to accounts and information.