Pension scheme membership up by 2% in 2003

Membership of occupational pension schemes increased by 2 per cent in 2003, boosting the numbers of people with their own pension by 15,000, the annual report by the Pensions Board has revealed.

Ms Anne Maher, chief executive of the Pensions Board, said a further 39,000 people had joined occupational schemes in 2004 to date, representing a rate of increase of 5 per cent. If this rate continues for the rest of the year, it will represent "a pretty high" rate of increase compared to recent years, she said, speaking at the report's publication yesterday.

Despite an increase of 11,000 in the numbers in defined-benefit pension schemes - the most attractive scheme for employees - the number of such schemes in operation fell by 11 per cent in 2003, from 1,901 to 1,693.

Some 62 new defined-benefit schemes were set up. However 270 were wound up, frozen or switched to defined-contribution schemes, which do not give employees any guarantees on the level of pension they will receive.

Ms Maher said sales of Personal Retirement Savings Accounts (PRSAs), access to which employers must offer to employees who are excluded from occupational schemes, had been "slow but steady".

At the end of March 2004, almost 27,000 PRSA contracts had been sold with total assets standing at more than €60 million.

The Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Ms Coughlan, said she looked forward to further growth in these numbers.

The annual report showed that the independent statutory body received 52 reports from whistleblowers in 2003, compared to just 15 in 2002. Most of the complaints related to employers who had failed to remit employee contributions to investment funds.

The Pensions Board is also expected to take its first prosecutions later this year against employers who have failed to comply with mandatory pensions access rules.

The board, which regulates pension schemes and PRSAs as well as advising the Government on pensions policy, dealt with 7,713 inquiries, a 44 per cent increase on the previous year, which it attributed to the effect of its National Pensions Awareness Campaign. A second campaign week is scheduled for September.