PRSA.ie

Employer's Obligations regarding PRSAs

Employers have to offer their employees the facility to put in place, at least one Standard PRSA in situations where:

• There is no pension scheme currently in place
• Some employees are excluded from the existing pension scheme
• The waiting period for membership of the existing scheme is more than 6 months
• The current pension scheme rules do not allow employees to make AVCs

To put the PRSA scheme in place, the employer needs to:

• Nominate a Standard PRSA provider approved by the Pensions Board. Zurich Life is an approved PRSA provider
• Inform your staff of who the nominated company is and that the facility exists to put in place a PRSA
• Let the employees know that PRSA payments can be made directly from their pay
• Allow the staff access to the provider to set up their PRSA

When the PRSA scheme is up and running the employer needs to:

• Remit payments deducted from employees to the PRSA provider within 21 days from the end of the month in which they were deducted
• Send and employer pension payments within the same period
• Notify the employee and provider of the payments deducted from salary and any employer pension payments, at least once a month

NB : The employer is not obliged to contribute to the PRSA and does not have any responsibility regarding the fund selection or performance of the PRSA.

A technical guide to PRSAs is available on the Research Documents page. This includes information on the role of the employer in setting up a PRSA Scheme and a guide to salary deduction.

If you want to nominate Zurich Life as a Standard PRSA provider for your business you can request a 'Letter of Appointment' on the Information Pack page.