Ireland’s Department of Finance (DoF) has “reservations” about the level of supervision for the government’s planned auto-enrolment (AE) scheme.

A Minister’s Brief put together by the department for the recently appointed Minister of Finance, Jack Chambers, stated: “The Department of Finance has reservations in relation to the supervision proposed in the AE Bill and is of a view that the supervision should include Forward Looking Risk Based Supervision in line with every other pension scheme that the Pensions Authority oversees.”

The new AE scheme will be run by the National Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings Authority (NAERSA), which will be run by Tata Consultancy Services, and the Pensions Authority will act as the regulator to the scheme.

As set out by the Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Act 2024 the Pensions Authority will only be required to undertake an annual supervisory report for the Minister at the Department of Social Protection, currently Heather Humphreys.

The report will review the performance of NAERSA and the board and the Pensions Authority will have the right to ask for information that it needs to complete the assessment.

However, private-sector occupational schemes regulated by the Pensions Authority are subject to much more oversight, especially since the introduction of the European Union’s IORP II Directive. This introduced several new regulatory reports and procedures for trustees. In addition, a voluntary Cost Transparency Standard has also recently been introduced but the Pensions Authority has warned it will make it a legal necessity if schemes don’t participate.

In addition to this concern, the DoF said it has also raised concerns around limitations on the nature of the complaints that can be made to the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman (FSPO).

“However, amendments proposed by this Department were not incorporated into the Automatic Enrolment Bill 2024,” it stated.

European Pensions has contacted the DSP for comment but it is yet to respond.

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