No pension contributions are being made to over 95 per cent of employer-designated Personal Retirement Savings Accounts (PRSAs), new figures reveal.

Some 58,770 employers who exclude all or certain employees from occupational pension schemes have signed up to a PRSA provider in compliance with their legal obligations, according to the Pensions Board.

However, in 56,268 cases, no employees have started saving for retirement using the new type of personal pension.

The figures suggest that the PRSA experience may echo the introduction of low-cost stakeholder pensions in Britain, where a year after their launch 90 per cent of employer schemes were found to have no members.

The number of employers who have appointed a PRSA provider falls short of the 170,000 registered employers to whom the Pensions Board sent guides on pensions obligations last year.

Some of these would previously have allowed all employees into an occupational scheme. Others would have introduced a new scheme or extended an existing scheme in order to comply with legislation requiring employers to give fixed-term contract workers the same pensions rights as permanent employees.

But it is likely that tens of thousands of employers are ignoring the new rules, which require that they offer all employees access to a pension scheme or a PRSA.

The Pensions Board is following up on 43 reports from "whistleblowers" received since the pensions access rules came into effect last September.

Yesterday the board said the monitoring of employers was a high priority for 2004 and that it was finalising arrangements to work with other Government agencies to check compliance.

When individuals such as self-employed people and homemakers are included, the take-up of PRSAs almost doubled in the final three months of 2003, when 12,315 people opened an account, bringing the total number of contracts sold in 2003 to 19,022.

The total value of the assets held in the PRSAs stood at €41 million as of December 31st.