Six Months In: How Is Ireland’s Auto-Enrolment Rollout Going?
How Is Ireland's Auto-Enrolment Rollout Going? Well, better than many feared, but it didn't launch without some bumps along the way.
·3 min read
Ireland’s auto-enrolment pension scheme, MyFuture Fund (MFF), was launched in January 2026, almost six months ago. After years of delays and debate, January 2026 finally marked the start of a new era for retirement saving in Ireland. So, how is it actually going?
Well, the answer is better than many feared, but it didn’t come without its bumps.
A slow start on awareness
Despite the investment the government made regarding information campaigns, a CSO survey found that fewer than one in three workers under the age of 35 knew that a mandatory workplace pension was coming into force. For a scheme that was years in the making and aimed at improving long-term financial security, that is a surprising gap.
This means that workers who stood to benefit most from the scheme, which younger employees without existing pension cover, were largely in the dark.
Encouraging numbers six months in
Aside from the awareness gap, and the operational picture looks impressive.
More than 800,000 employees have been enrolled, which is a significant number of people now building pension savings who weren’t doing so before.
Over 100,000 employers are now using payroll software to calculate, deduct, and report both employer and employee MFF contributions to the National Auto Enrolment Retirement Savings Authority (NAERSA).
We asked Bright’s founder, Paul Byrne, how he feels the scheme is going:
“There was a full year of engagement and debate covering the systems and operational practicalities prior to MyFutureFund going live. The payroll software developers represented by the Payroll Software Developers Association (PSDA), the Department of Social Protection (DSP), the National Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings Authority (NAERSA) and TATA Consulting Services (TCS) were all involved in the discourse. Fortunately, despite much anxiety for all, the actual go live went relatively smoothly. There were issues with some of the early AEPNs but things appear to have settled down since and, hopefully, it will continue to operate smoothly. Overall, it is a fantastic initiative and will boost the retirement income and standard of living of those not already covered by occupational pension schemes.”
– Paul Byrne, Founder of Bright
That anxiety Paul mentions was real. Any system of this scale that impacts hundreds of thousands of employers and employees carries enormous operational risk at launch. The fact that things settled down relatively quickly is a credit to the groundwork laid by everyone involved in the process.
What’s next for auto-enrolment?
The next auto-enrolment milestone lands on the 1st of July 2026, where employees will have a two-month window to opt out of the scheme for one or two years.
Mark McDonagh, Payroll Manager at Bright, put it well: “It will be very interesting to see the number of employees that take the option to opt-out.”
If the numbers are low, it signals that employees are broadly comfortable with the scheme and the contributions being made on their behalf. If they are high, it could point to affordability concerns or a continued lack of understanding about the long-term benefits.
Six months in, MyFuture Fund is very much up and running. The next six months will tell us even more.
Make auto-enrolment easy
Discover how easy auto-enrolment compliance can be with our modern cloud payroll software designed for bureaus in 2026, BrightPay.
This content may have been developed with the assistance of AI tools. Content is reviewed by a member of the Bright team before publication. Guidance on legislation can be obtained from your industry body.
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