Compulsory pension schemes on way

COMPULSORY pension schemes co-funded by employers, workers and the State may be on the way after the Government said yesterday that it needed new solutions to the country’s pension problems.

The news, which will be greeted with alarm by business groups that fear higher payroll costs, appeared to dent hopes for extra tax breaks to encourage more people to take out private pensions.

Social Affairs Minister Seamus Brennan said yesterday that “urgent action” was required to bump up pensions coverage. Just over half of the country’s two million people at work have a pension in place, while around 900,000 people have nothing to supplement the basic State pension, he said. Speaking at the launch of National Pensions Action Week, the latest initiative to boost pension take-up, Mr Brennan said he had asked the Pensions Board to report to him before September on three proposals: