"It's important that in addition to providing professional services to our clients, we provide an inviting work environment, including ongoing professional development and a good pension scheme to ensure we remain an employer of choice, " says director Karen Kiernan.

Formerly known as Cherish, One Family has undergone rapid growth and development since Karen took the helm just over five years ago, and now has a permanent staff of 13, with another 10 working on contract.

Karen herself joined the charity's pension scheme one year into taking up her appointment. She was then 33 years old.

The scheme is a fairly typical "defined contribution, five and five scheme" which means that One Family pays 5% of Karen's gross salary into the scheme and she contributes another 5%, on which she receives tax relief.

Karen asked the employee benefits consultancy team at Deloitte, a professional services firm, to asses the benefit that this would provide for her on retirement. The goal is to achieve a pension which, when added to the state old-age pension, currently 10,052 a year, is equal to half of salary.

"This scheme is very typical, not only in the notfor-profit sector, but of Irish defined contribution schemes in general, " says Ian Mitchell, leader of the Deloitte employee benefits team, "and if someone joins at age 21 and keeps contributing throughout working life it may come close to meeting the 50% target. However, for those joining schemes later in life than this, I'm afraid that the numbers will have to be significantly increased."

In fact, Karen's pension scheme will buy her a projected income in retirement of around 37% of her final salary, including the social welfare pension.

To achieve the 50% target her pension needs to be funded at the rate of at least 16% of her salary . . . though this figure would need to be revised each time Karen's income increases significantly, as the impact of the social welfare payment lessens as salaries rise.

Some of Karen's staff may be older than she is, and figures show that for someone who enters a pension scheme at age 38, the percentage contribution to pension required to achieve the 50% target then becomes 20% of total gross income.

Clearly the One Family scheme can be improved, though the onus to provide for our retirement should, and does, rest both with ourselves and our employer.

"This is why the level of additional voluntary contribution (AVC) contributions being made by Irish employees is increasing dramatically, " says Mitchell. "In fact, some socially responsible employers are now offering more flexible schemes in which they increase their level of contributions to match AVC payments being made by employees . . . up to a certain maximum.

"The 50% target is a good benchmark. Try to imagine a life in which your pay drops below that level from one month to the next. It's not an appealing thought.

And it's good for employers to address this issue with their staff early on.

"In my view the One Family scheme isn't too far off the mark. However the potentially inadequate level of income available in retirement should be addressed by either raising the employer contribution or through setting in place a more flexible matching arrangement . . . particularly in light of the fact that a lot of professional staff join the organisation in their 30s.

"And of course employees should be seeking to maximise AVC payments where circumstances allow.

These receive tax relief up to Revenue specified levels and represent excellent value for money. Even if your occupational pension scheme is not geared to provide as much as 50% of your salary as post retirement income, you need to target to achieve this level through taking action yourself."

Ian Mitchell, managing director, Deloitte Pensions & Investments, can be contacted at imitchell@deloitte. ie