Pensions everywhere

T

tradini

Guest
I have just now been having a discussion with somebody I work with who told me that I might be in an awkward position with regard to pensions.

He tells me that I am only allowed to have one pension in Ireland. Now, strictly speaking, I do only have one pension, in Ireland. However, I do have two pensions in England from when I worked there. He said that this might not be legal under Irish pension legislation. Does anyone know if this is true? I don't really want to move my pensions in England, because the exit penalties on both pensions are onerous.

On a related subject, my wife actually has three pensions in Ireland. She has two part-time jobs working for public sector (schools), for which she qualifies for superannuation schemes with both jobs. She also has a third job which does not provide a pension, but she pays into a personal pension to compensate for this. Is there some particular rule that allows her to do this because her other two pensions are public sector schemes?

Sorry to ask so many questions at once, but after my recent conversation with my colleague, I am left quite bewildered.

Thanks for any help.
Chris.
 
In general you can only contribute to one pension at a time (there may be exceptions to this rule). Perhaps you mean that you contributed to one or more occupational or personal pensions in the past and at some stage left them paid up when you joined another scheme? If this is the case then the fact that you have other pensions, regardless of where they are located, should not be a problem. On the other hand, if you are currently contributing to more than one pension then that could be a problem. Maybe you can clarify.

I'm not sure about your wife's situation so maybe one of the pension experts here can comment.

Hope this helps.
 
Yes, these are pensions that I paid into in the past and have left dormant after moving jobs. I would love to consolidate them, but as I say, the exit penalties are onerous. I only pay into one pension at the moment.

Perhaps I am coming to an understanding. My wife is allowed her pensions because two are occupational pensions and one is an AVC. Is that right? Is she allowed two occupational pensions because she works for two (actually three) different jobs at the same time?
 
Yes, these are pensions that I paid into in the past and have left dormant after moving jobs. I would love to consolidate them, but as I say, the exit penalties are onerous. I only pay into one pension at the moment.

That is a fairly common situation and is not a problem. Your friend must have been talking about contributing to more than one pension at any one time - e.g. one is generally not allowed contribute to an occupational and a personal pension plan at the same time - or maybe you can but only get tax relief on one or the other. PRSAs change this to some extent as far as I know (e.g. an occupational scheme plus an AVC PRSA is allowed I believe) but somebody with more pension expertise than me can probable give you better advice on this generally. Note that consolidating existing funds into one is not necessarily a good thing. It all depends on the charges - both transfer/exit charges such as you mention (are they with profits based by any chance) and ongoing management charges. As long as you retain documentation (e.g. membership numbers/certificates, statements etc.) relating to your existing pensions and review them from time to time there should be no problem other than a slight bit of additional administrative overhead on your part compared to a single consolidated pension. As long as you're not paying exhorbitant charges on any individual pension fund some would argue that having them spread across different managers/funds provides an element of diversification which could actually be advantageous.

Again - I'm not sure about your wife's situation so will allow somebody with more expertise than me to comment.

Hope this helps.
 
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