Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System

You may know that there are plans to introduce a retirement savings system in 2022. Last week Early Childhood Ireland made a submission to the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection (DEASP) on the proposed Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System. 

It is anticipated that employees and employers will contribute between 1% and 6% of gross annual salary into the pension scheme which will be topped up by the state.

In principle, Early Childhood Ireland supports the introduction of an auto-enrolment pension savings scheme, to form part of a system that will ensure that people have enough money to live on in retirement. Early years staff are vital to the quality of early years education and we know our members want them to have the best possible employment terms and conditions, including pensions.

At the same time, we made it clear in our submission that we do not want to see early years providers put under further financial and administrative strain by the proposed scheme. Early Childhood Ireland finds it difficult to understand how both staff and providers will be able to afford the proposed pension contributions. Nor do we want to see as an unintended consequence of the scheme, any worsening of the existing serious staffing crisis in the sector, caused by historic government under-investment.

Early Childhood Ireland called for special provisions to be put in place so that the auto-enrolment scheme can work for the early years sector. These include financial assistance with contributions for low paid staff and low-turnover early years providers.

Click to read our submission on the auto-enrolment pension scheme.