# Benefits Office Require UK Employment Details



## Conshine (10 Jun 2008)

Wife wants to claim for some dental benefit. We have both had National Insurance contributions in the UK.

She has not worked in Ireland, but I have PRSI contributions in Ireland, but not the required amount.

Benefits office say you can combine your UK and Irish contributions to reach the required contribution amount.

I have a letter from the benefits office asking for my employment history.
I had a couple of gaps for travel and a few temp jobs about 10-15 years back.

The exact dates I am unable to give, I only put month / year on my CV.

I dont have some of the dates, as they were temp jobs and I just extended the dates of travel on my CV rather than having lots of "odd jobs"

Why are they not able to find out my contributions based on my NI number?

What if I miss one - say a few months working with Temp Agency X? Will that be disregarded because I did not put it in the list? Even though I made valid NI contributions?

Am I able to get the correct dates and contributions from the NI Office (??) in the UK?

Am thinking it would be useful to have this accurate info.


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## ClubMan (10 Jun 2008)

Conshine said:


> Am I able to get the correct dates and contributions from the NI Office (??) in the UK?


I would have thought so as long as you have your _UK _social security (national insurance?) number(s)?


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## Welfarite (10 Jun 2008)

Conshine said:


> Why are they not able to find out my contributions based on my NI number?


 
It's the UK end has the problem. It's not just a matter of Irish SW keying in a UK number into a computer. They have to wriute over to the UK for a written confirmation of your UK record. I suspect that the UK are having difficulty tracing your records which is not unusual for them in my experience. When this happens, SW ask you for details of work dates, old addresses, etc to help them get your UK record sorted. (The UK were not computerised or centralised until years after Irish SW were so there are huge difficultiesd in many cases getting records sorted, AFAIK).

Don't worry about being too exact and getting everything right. More than likely, a gerneral outline of rough dates, employers names and addresses will suffice in getting it sorted. 




Conshine said:


> Am I able to get the correct dates and contributions from the NI Office (??) in the UK?



In the light of above, good luck to you!


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## Lorraine B (10 Jun 2008)

hi Conshine, 
I had the same problem as you.  Returned from the UK and needed to use my UK contributions to add to my Irish  when I started working here.

I ended up getting a copy of my NI contributions record from the UK and sending it to DSFA.  Only then did I get PRSI contributions to go towards eye tests and dental work

Hope this might help

Lorraine B


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## Conshine (11 Jun 2008)

Thanks guys. What is the "NI department" in the UK called?
Is it part of HM Revenue & Customs, or is it a different organisation alltogether?

Thanks!


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## ClubMan (11 Jun 2008)

Do you not mean the DWP (formerly _DHSS_)? I thought that they dealt with the _UK _as a whole?

Update: oops - just noticed that it IS HM Revenue & Customs who deal with national insurance issues...  But again I assumed that this department dealt with the _UK _as a whole?


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