New powers to impose on-the-spot fines on trustees of pension schemes will come into effect in the autumn, the Minister for Social and Family Affairs Martin Cullen said yesterday.

Speaking at the launch of the Pensions Board's annual report, Mr Cullen said the fines would make it easier for the board to sanction firms that do not comply with pensions law.

Pensions Board chief executive Brendan Kennedy said it was unhappy with the level of co-operation from occupational pension schemes, with several companies failing to give the board information on their scheme.

The board successfully prosecuted nine employers and trustees in 2006. Seven of the cases were taken against employers for ignoring the board when it asked for information on what steps they had taken to give their employees access to pensions.

Mr Kennedy said on-the-spot fines would be more appropriate than court actions in some cases.

"It's fair to say that we are not satisfied with the level of compliance," he said.

Measures giving the board greater supervisory powers were included in the Social Welfare Act earlier this year but were not activated.

The long-awaited Green Paper on pensions will now be published in September or October, the Minister said. His predecessor, Seamus Brennan, had promised to publish the document by last Easter.

Mr Cullen, who took over responsibility for the pensions brief after the Government reshuffle in June, said he was reading the Green Paper at the moment and that it would be published shortly after the Dáil's summer recess. He said it was a "substantial" document with "many complex issues".

The Minister would not say if he favoured mandatory pensions or so-called "soft mandatory" pensions in which people are automatically enrolled in a pension when they start work and must formally opt out of the scheme.

"I'm not ruling anything in and anything out," he said.

The Pensions Board's report shows that almost 800,000 people belong to an occupational pension scheme, an increase of 8.5 per cent on 2005. Some 55 per cent of the workforce are saving for retirement through a pension.

Mr Kennedy warned that some trustees and individual pensions savers were failing to appreciate the high investment risks they may be taking in their search for high returns from equities and property.