# Will British state pension affect Irish state pension entitlements



## buckrodgers

My Dad worked in England for roughly eleven years in the 1970's. He then emigrated to Ireland where he has worked for the rest of his life. He is now nearing retirement (3years away) and has found out that he would be entitled to half the state pension in England. They also told him he could buy extra years as well. If he accepts this pension will his Irish pension be effected or will they be treated seperatly. Anyone he has asked have said it is a very grey area. I was also wondering if it would be worthwhile to try and get the money together to buy the extra years. I think it would cost about ten grand, but if it meant he would loose out on his irish pension would it even be worth it. He couldnt afford to pay the ten grand, myself and my siblings would have to try and get it together. Any ad.vice would be appreciated


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## South

*Re: Will British Pension affect Irish entitlements*

It should have no entitlement to his right to the Irish State Contributory Pension.

Does he have sufficient PRSI contributions in Ireland to claim the full Irish State Pension?

In relation to buying added years in the UK, how much extra pension will he receive if he makes the £10,000/€10,000(?) contribution?


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## ajapale

*Re: Will British Pension affect Irish entitlements*

Moved from PRSAs and Pensions
to Welfare and State Benefits


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## Swallows

If your dad has eleven years contributions in UK it is probably not worth paying ten thousand pounds, because my understanding is, you need ten years minimum before you are entitled to anything. He can claim whatever pension he is entitled to from UK and whatever he gets from here and between the two he should have the required amount.From memory the qualifying years in UK is 42 years contributions for men.Women used to be less but that has now changed. In any case he will do better getting a pension from Ireland and at €200 a week with free electricity and telephone it is better than UK.Invest the ten grand somewhere else.


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## buckrodgers

*Re: Will British Pension affect Irish entitlements*



South said:


> It should have no entitlement to his right to the Irish State Contributory Pension.
> 
> Does he have sufficient PRSI contributions in Ireland to claim the full Irish State Pension?
> 
> In relation to buying added years in the UK, how much extra pension will he receive if he makes the £10,000/€10,000(?) contribution?


 Thanks for the replies. He has enough prsi contributions here to claim the full Irish state pension. From what I can make out from the English documentation he will get 50% at the moment and he could buy the years to make up the full pension by paying approx. 10,000. I need to have another look at the documents they sent him as they are very confusing.


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## Welfarite

*Re: Will British Pension affect Irish entitlements*



buckrodgers said:


> Thanks for the replies. He has enough prsi contributions here to claim the full Irish state pension. From what I can make out from the English documentation he will get 50% at the moment and he could buy the years to make up the full pension by paying approx. 10,000. I need to have another look at the documents they sent him as they are very confusing.


 
If he is entitled to the full Irish Contributory Pension, it cannot be reduced by any other pension entitlement such as the UK Pension.

I would double check the figures from UK re buying years....a friend of mine has 14 years contributions and he enquired about buying years. He was told a minimum of 30 years is required, so he will be buying 16, the first 7-8 at about 300 sterling P.A. and the rest at about 110 P.A... he worked it out at about 3000+ grand. His entitlement would be fro 87 sterling per week so it's worth it....if he lives to collect it for a couple of years, that is!


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## South

*Re: Will British Pension affect Irish entitlements*



buckrodgers said:


> Thanks for the replies. He has enough prsi contributions here to claim the full Irish state pension. From what I can make out from the English documentation he will get 50% at the moment and he could buy the years to make up the full pension by paying approx. 10,000. I need to have another look at the documents they sent him as they are very confusing.


 
If he can get the full English pension and full Irish pension - it should provide for a pretty comfortable retirement.

If he pays the £10K how much bigger will his English annual pension be?

If it makes a difference of more than £600/year and he is in good health...I would probably say it's a great deal he should take it.


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## Homer

I'm not sure it's as simple as that.

From what I can recall, there are reciprocal arrangements for people who move from the UK to Ireland and vice versa and it's possible to receive a partial pension in each country. I also think that in recent years, the rules have been changed so that Social Welfare contributions in (some?) other EU countries can count towards your eligibility for the Irish state pension.

I think there used to be a booklet published by the DSFA (or whatever it's called these days) that dealt with UK/Ireland transfers and it may have been called _Scope _or something like that. If it's still being published, it should contain at least some of the information you will need to be able to make an informed decision.

Regards
Homer


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## buckrodgers

Thank you all for your replies. I will sit down at the weekend and go through all the info. I just want to be sure they (ie my parents) have a comfortable retirement


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## Golfclan

I am in a similar situation to your dad having worked in the U.K. for 16 years and then returned to Ireland.  I agree with what the others have said in that your dad will be able to obtain pensions from Ireland and the U.K.

Here is a link to Finfacts which explains how member states calculate pensions when a person has worked in two or more states.  As you can see your dad will not be at a disadvantage.  http://www.finfacts.com/fincentre/statepensions.htm

One thing that you dad might consider is to defer claiming the U.K. pension for a number of years and if he does that the amount of pension will increase by about 10% a year for every year that he defers taking a pension.  Here is a link to the U.K. Pension site that explains it: http://www.thepensionservice.gov.uk/statepensiondeferral/choices.asp

I would be interested in hearing how your dad gets on.


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## buckrodgers

Thanks for the suggestion for defering, 10% is quite substancial, definetly worth thinking about! Although Dad is a major hypocondriac, he is allways saying he probably wont make it to retirement, sods law he thinks, work all his life and as soon as he gets to his time off he thinks he will pop his clogs   so he may not be too keen on defering if he does make it


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