A Green Paper on the future of pensions provision in Ireland will examine mandatory pensions and will be complete by the end of March, the Minister for Social Affairs Seamus Brennan today.
Addressing an Ictu pensions conference at Croke Park in Dublin today the Minister said the Green Paper was looking at international experience "on what works and what doesn't work".
"We must debate, investigate and give serious consideration to all options, including mandatory pensions," he said.
Mr Brennan said he expects the plan to reassess the objectives of our pension system and "examine how we can ensure the adequacy of pensioner incomes both now and in the future."
Setting out the context for reform, Mr Brennan said the current ratio of having four people in employment for every one retiree over 65will fall to a ratio of 2 to 1 in just 20 years time.
He added that just under half, just 900,000 people of the 2 million-strong workforce have not have a pension.
He said the State was spending €2.8 billion on pensions and a further €2.5 billion on tax reliefs and pension investments.
The Minister said that "despite the best efforts of all involved in promoting greater awareness and takeup of pensions, the reality is that the overall coverage rate remains disappointing."
Mr Brennan said he believes that proposals from the British government for a savings scheme, in which employees would be automatically enrolled into a pension when they start a new job, but also be given an opt out clause, should be given consideration in the preparation of our Green Paper.
"At the end of the day we have a responsibility to find some way of ensuring that those 900,000 out there without pensions will have decent incomes in retirement and well-earned security in old age.
"On the road to making decisions on whether or not mandatory is the best route to take, maybe we should also look at the idea of taping into the success of the SSIA scheme and build on the savings habit that has been created," Mr Brennan said.