There has been a failure to mobilise employees to start contributing to pensions, Minister for Social and Family Affairs Seamus Brennan said today.
Publishing Ireland's second National Strategy Report to the EU on Adequate and Sustainable Pensions, Mr Brennan said that, out of a workforce of some two million, an estimated 900,000 people do not have a private or occupational pension.
Only one third of working women outside the public service have pensions and many of these have pensions that are far from adequate.
Mr Brennan said he looked forward to receiving the National Pensions Review he has requested from the Pensions Board.
"Earlier this year I asked the Pensions Board to bring forward the statutory review of pensions strategy, by more than one year, because I felt that, despite the hard work of all involved, we are failing to mobilise the public at large, and employees, to start contributing to pensions in the numbers required," Mr Brennan said.
He said Ireland, along with other European Member States, is facing "the challenge of ensuring that our pensions system can sustain the pressures presented by an ageing population."
He added the pension system needed to be modernised and "difficult policy choices" needed to be made.
He has asked the board to examine the best means of tapping into the savings habit created by SSIAs, as one way to creating a pensions/savings scheme that would have widespread appeal.
He also said mandatory pensions were "under close examination".
