The government has approved the details of its new pension auto-enrolment scheme in what Minister for Social Protection Heather Humphreys described as a “generational reform” of the Irish pensions system. The General Scheme of the Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System has now been referred to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection for pre-legislative scrutiny. If passed into law, the scheme will require workers to pay into a voluntary workplace pension scheme, co-funded by their employer and the state on an opt-out rather than an opt-in basis.