Sales of Personal Retirement Savings Accounts (PRSAs) continue to disappoint, according to figures released by the Pensions Board yesterday.

Data for the third quarter show that the 10 financial institutions providing the portable pension products are failing to grow their sales. Between them, they sold just 4,240 PRSAs in the three months to the end of September, less than 100 more than in the same period last year.

The Pensions Board figures also show that, despite repeated warnings, more than one-third of Irish registered companies have so far failed to offer PRSAs to their staff.

At the end of September, a total of almost €329 million was invested in 59,251 PRSA contracts. However, less than half of these have been opened by people through their employers.

While 74,284 companies have registered with a PRSA provider as required, employees at just under 8,200 of these companies have opened a PRSA account.

Workplace-based PRSAs account for just 25,555 of the accounts opened to date.

Standard PRSAs, in which fees and other charges are tightly regulated, continue to dominate the PRSA market, accounting for more than 46,000 of the contracts in force.

The Government introduced PRSAs in early 2004 as a flexible pension option for people in employment, where occupational pension schemes were not offered and also to facilitate people who regularly moved jobs or were between jobs but wanted to open a private pension.

The programme was intended to help raise the proportion of the workforce with private pension provision from around 50 per cent to 70 per cent. However, it has failed to do so.

The Pensions Board is finalising a review of national pension policy triggered a year early by Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Séamus Brennan.

The Minister is expected to receive the report in the next fortnight.

Mr Brennan has stated that the failure of the PRSA initiative to increase pension coverage may lead to the introduction of mandatory pensions.