More than one in five adults do not have a bank account or own any financial products, according to an Irish Financial Awareness Report published by Royal Liver last week.
The report indicates, however,that most Irish people believe they manage their finances well, with 72 per cent of the population managing their finances "carefully" and just 3 per cent admitting that they failed to do so.
Less than one in four adults have a mortgage despite the recent rush to get a rung on the property ladder, the report notes.
Some 22 per cent of the 1,200 adults interviewed for the survey by Lansdowne Market Research do not have a bank account, life assurance, credit card, SSIA, pension, debit card or mortgage. The age profile for those without any financial products is remarkably even, according to the report.
But over three-quarters of those that have a bank account always know how much they have in their account. More than half save money each month and only 12 per cent admitted to falling into debt before the next payday. The report claims that Ireland is "a nation of savers rather than spenders", with 69 per cent of adults owning a savings account. Just over a quarter use credit cards.
The report also suggests that the Government's National Pensions Awareness Campaign, due to run sometime during 2003, will have some work to do to raise the profile of Personal Retirement Savings Accounts (PRSAs) - the new model of flexible pension aimed at people with no private pension.
Only 6 per cent of those surveyed mentioned PRSAs when asked to name any new Government savings schemes. The majority of people who did not mention the PRSAs admitted they had never heard of them.
The average person believes he or she will need €28,200 a year in order to have a reasonable livelihood when they retire. When asked what level of contributions would be required to achieve the level of pension they wanted, one in five admitted they did not know, while 13 per cent believed a monthly payment of less than €50 would be sufficient. The average estimated monthly payment is €164.
Nearly half of all those surveyed - 47 per cent - agreed that the introduction of compulsory pension schemes would be a good idea. Just 12 per cent described compulsory pension schemes as a bad idea.
Mr Steve Burnett, chief executive of Royal Liver UK & Ireland, said the company commissioned the research in order to find out whether awareness of the "potential time bomb" in retirement provision was "filtering out to the man on the street".
