Government to consider mandatory pensions report

A new Pensions Board report on appropriate mandatory pensions systems will be brought to Government for consideration shortly, Minister for Social and Family Affairs Séamus Brennan said yesterday.

The Minister, who received a copy of the report from the Pensions Board last week, said the debate on mandatory pensions would intensify over the next year.

The Government has agreed to publish a Green Paper on pensions within 12 months of the ratification of social partnership talks, which is expected later this summer.

"It is important that we have a large degree of consensus," the Minister said at the launch of the Pensions Board's annual report.

Pensions Board chairman Tiarnan O'Mahoney said he hoped both the board's report on appropriate mandatory or quasi-mandatory pensions systems and the National Pensions Review Report published in January would form the basis for the Government's Green Paper.

The Pensions Board is to step up its supervision of pensions schemes, it was also announced yesterday.

The board's annual report for 2005 shows an improvement in the overall compliance and governance of pension schemes. However, chief executive Anne Maher said yesterday that the standard of pensions administration was "varied" and that the board would be more proactive in its approach to supervision.

To date, the Pensions Board has largely reacted to reports from whistleblowers in its investigations of employers and trustees. She said the board would be applying to the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Mr Brennan, for additional funding to pursue its activities in this area.

The board took 10 prosecutions last year. These were the first PRSA prosecutions since the pensions were introduced in 2003.