Hundreds of thousands of workers will be able to choose whether to stick with the State’s new workplace pension scheme from next month.Almost 770,000 workers were compulsorily signed up to the new auto-enrolment scheme on January 1st. It is designed to ensure all workers have a reasonable income in retirement rather than relying solely on the State pension.Called My Future Fund, it takes 1.5 per cent of a worker’s gross wage each month. A similar sum comes from the employer, with the State adding €1 for every €3 put in by the worker. Those figures will rise gradually over the coming years so that workers will have 6 per cent of their wages taken from 2035.The deductions are made from the salary of all workers aged between 23 and 60, who earn more than €20,000 a year and who have no other pension payments deducted from their salary at source outside of PRSI.But, from July 1st, a two-month window opens during which workers paying into the scheme can choose to opt out of the arrangement. A spokesman for the National Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings Authority (Naersa), the organisation overseeing the scheme, said the My Future Fund is designed to help people increase their financial security in their retirement years. He said market research consistently shows that eligible employees have a favourable view of auto-enrolment. Will new pay transparency rules close the gender pay gap for good? Listen | 28:55“The quickest and easiest way to opt out is through the My Future Fund participant portal during the opt-out window. To do this, participants can log into the My Future Fund portal using their verified MyGovID. Once logged in during their opt-out window, they will be able to select the opt-out option,” the agency said.“Information on opting out will be provided and some mandatory questions will need to be answered.”Anyone choosing to do so will have a cooling-off period of 48 hours during which they can change their minds.If they are determined to opt out, they will have any contributions made to date refunded. However, the State and employer contributions made to their fund over the past six months will remain in the scheme and will continue to be invested on the participants’ behalf.No future employer or State contributions will be made unless the worker chooses to rejoin the scheme or until they are once again compulsorily signed up two years after opting out.The opt-out window for those who were signed up in January will close at the end of August. After that, the next chance for anyone to opt out will be in the two months after contributions increase – in January and February of 2029, 2032 and 2035.However, there is an option within the scheme for people to pause contributions at any time for any reason.“The people most likely to leave are often the ones who should stay, while those with a genuine reason to opt out usually do not realise it,” cautions financial adviser True Financial.It notes that while the scheme is strongly recommended for people paying income tax at the standard rate, who otherwise would rely solely on the State pension, higher-rate taxpayers may benefit more from the tax relief available via more traditional occupational pension arrangements.However, that depends on whether the worker’s employer is also happy to contribute to their pension. Most of those signed up to My Future Fund work in companies where employers have failed to do so.As of March, Naesra said more than 6,600 employers had not yet signed up to the auto-enrolment scheme as required. The agency is working to bring these employers on board and has warned that employers who do not sign up can be prosecuted.