The Irish Pensions Authority has set out its priorities for 2026, outlining plans for its supervision and oversight activities over the coming year.

In a presentation to the National Pensions Summit, pensions regulator, Brendan Kennedy, noted that the authority had conducted several supervisory reviews in 2025, primarily focused on master trusts, and planned to publish a summary by the end of February.

Ahead of the publication, Kennedy said it had found a wide range of outcomes and issues, including that some trustees seemed to lack awareness of conflicts of interest and failed to identify them in their schemes.

There were also examples of trustees not giving enough consideration to operational resilience, while not all trustees recognised the importance of the own risk assessment.

Meanwhile, the authority’s application of forward-looking risk-based supervision continued to develop, and it expected to refine its oversight of standalone schemes and increase its expectations of trustees.

In 2026, the authority’s priorities included the ongoing supervision of continuing schemes and raising trustee standards where necessary, and the completion of the transition of other schemes to master trusts or PRSAs.

It will also be using more data to support supervision, with the authority’s new IT system going live in mid-2026, after which it will prioritise improving and expanding data collection, which will require pension administration systems to be capable of providing accurate and timely data in the formats it will require.

The oversight of PRSAs will be increased, including the gathering of more data to underpin better risk assessment and identify areas of concern.

Other priorities included the implementation of scheme authorisation as soon as possible, and monitoring and responding to national and EU developments as needed.

“Auto-enrolment was launched at the beginning of this year, and the numbers of employers and employees enrolled are very promising,” Kennedy stated.

“At the same time, in the recent years, the Authority has seen an increase in the number of members of occupational schemes and of contributors to PRSAs.

“Taken together, the result is a very significant and welcome increase in pensions coverage.

“The process of bedding in the requirements of the IORP II Directive is continuing, as is the consolidation process.

“An important milestone will be reached in a few months’ time when the five-year derogation for single member schemes expires in April.”

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