In-person event: Scheme Actuary Forum

The 2024 Scheme Actuary Forum will cover:

• Update from the Pensions Authority

• The Standard Fund Threshold

  The Standard Fund Threshold was introduced in 2005 as a deterrent to excessive discretionary private sector pension contributions. However the policy objective was changed in 2014, and the system now applies in different ways to private sector DC, private sector DB, and public sector DB benefits. Ther presentation outlines the changes to the Threshold system, its impact on different types of benefits, and options for change. 

• Saving for Ireland’s Future: Building a Sustainable Framework to fund the State Pension

The funding of the State Pension will come under increasing pressure in the coming decades as the population ages. This requires a long-term approach to managing and funding the pension system. Creating a separate State Pension Fund to support the State Pension could help manage these costs. Governments should be required to put in place credible plans about how to finance this Fund on a very long-term basis, drawing on international best practice. One approach would be to set Pay Related Social Insurance (PRSI) rates at the constant level required to ensure the State Pension Fund balances over the long run, rather than raising PRSI rates on younger cohorts to finance the pensions of baby boomers. This would require PRSI rates to rise by about 3.5 percentage points over their current level — half the increase required under the Pension Commission proposals. By raising rates in the next couple of years and taxing the baby boomers while they are working, this would avoid larger tax increases in later years. The approach suggested here would lead to the accumulation of a Fund estimated at over 40% of GNI* in the second half of the century that would eventually be rundown to pay off future pensions, introducing a partial element of funding to Ireland’s pension system. Saving “excess” corporation tax receipts in the NPF could help to fund future pensions, thus reducing the burden on future taxpayers.

• Breakout session