# joan burton 2012 pension changes



## joe sod (26 Jan 2018)

The 2012 pension changes (Im not overly familiar with the details) I think allowed people with 520 minimum prsi contributions avail of the full state pension (my understanding) . Therefore  if you only worked 10 years full time before retirement you could avail of full state pension. There has been alot of publicity about how this change disenfrachised working women who took long breaks from workforce for family reasons and therefore reduced considerably their average prsi contributions. However there has been no publicity about the people who benefited from this change (people who started working in ireland very late in their working lives). Surely in all fairness when this change was introduced the minimum prsi contributions should have been closer to 20 years rather than 10 years considering how much the state pension costs.

My question is if this change was brought in to save the state money why then did they not also increase the minimum total prsi contributions to avail of state pension. It seems to have benefited immigrants arriving in Ireland late in life to start working to the detriment of people who have worked here all their lives.


----------



## RETIRED2017 (26 Jan 2018)

joe sod said:


> The 2012 pension changes (Im not overly familiar with the details) I think allowed people with 520 minimum prsi contributions avail of the full state pension (my understanding) . Therefore  if you only worked 10 years full time before retirement you could avail of full state pension. There has been alot of publicity about how this change disenfrachised working women who took long breaks from workforce for family reasons and therefore reduced considerably their average prsi contributions. However there has been no publicity about the people who benefited from this change (people who started working in ireland very late in their working lives). Surely in all fairness when this change was introduced the minimum prsi contributions should have been closer to 20 years rather than 10 years considering how much the state pension costs.
> My question is if this change was brought in to save the state money why then did they not also increase the minimum total prsi contributions to avail of state pension. It seems to have benefited immigrants arriving in Ireland late in life to start working to the detriment of people who have worked here all their lives.



You are about to open some can of worms,


----------



## Palerider (26 Jan 2018)

A Thorny issue which I think will be revisited again and again before I get to my State Pension ' entitlement ' which is a long way off.

People are right to be examining this but moreso do be mindful of your unique situation, establish your contributions now and monitor into the future so you qualify for the max if it still exists when you reach retirement age, I would be less concerned about other contributors.


----------



## RETIRED2017 (26 Jan 2018)

Palerider said:


> A Thorny issue which I think will be revisited again and again before I get to my State Pension ' entitlement ' which is a long way off.
> 
> People are right to be examining this but moreso do be mindful of your unique situation, establish your contributions now and monitor into the future so you qualify for the max if it still exists when you reach retirement age, I would be less concerned about other contributors.


Hopefully It will not be an issue for me I have reached 65 will be 66 in a few months,
Seeing you said it is a thorny issue you know how unfair the system is already,


----------



## Protocol (26 Jan 2018)

The 2012 change was not about the minimum no. of conts.

It was about the rate bands for the average no. of conts.


----------



## Protocol (26 Jan 2018)

pre Sep 2012

*State Pension (Contributory) rates for people who qualified for pensions before 1 September 2012*

*Yearly average PRSI contributions* *Personal rate per week, €* * (aged 66 and over)*

48 or over = 238.30 
20 - 47 = 233.60 
15 - 19 = 178.70 
10 - 14 = 119.20


----------



## Protocol (26 Jan 2018)

post 2012

*State Pension (Contributory) rates from 10 March 2017
Yearly average PRSI contributions* *Personal rate per week, €* (over 66)*

48 or over 238.30 
40-47 = 233.60 
30-39 = 214.20
20-29 = 202.80

15-19 = 155.20

10-14 = 95.20


----------



## joe sod (26 Jan 2018)

Protocol said:


> The 2012 change was not about the minimum no. of conts.
> 
> It was about the rate bands for the average no. of conts.



The minimum number of contributions is also crucial and unfair, why should someone that only worked 10 years full time and have 48 or more average contributions because they only worked for 10 years be entitled to full state pension. For example it would have been simple to include the minimum contributions for each band for example

48 or over 238.3  (condition of 1300 minimum contributions)
40 - 47 = 233.6    (condition of 900 mimimun contributions)

and so on, at least that would be absolutely open and fair and nobody would feel disenfranchised. It would also ensure the sustainability of the state pension afterall people like me are paying for all this in their prsi contributions but are skeptical if it will survive to my retirement because of all the political manouvres


----------



## joe sod (27 Jan 2018)

ttps://www.independent.ie/business/personal-finance/pensions/pensions-reforms-would-leave-some-retired-workers-up-to-60pc-worse-off-36536219.html

an article in the independent today actually illustrates an example of what I was talking about above, here is an excerpt from the article:

"Illustrative examples provided by the department included a man, 'William (67)', who moved to Ireland aged 50 and has 16 years of contributions.

Under current rules, he gets €238.30 per week but when TCA is applied this drops to just €95.30."

It seems absolutely fair that someone who only started work age 50 should not get full pension, why was this not accounted for in 2012, I dont believe the department did not see this in 2012


----------



## mtk (28 Jan 2018)

yep per independent article seems you will need to  have 40 years contrib,/credits to get full pension.....


----------



## Conan (28 Jan 2018)

The original proposal moving to a TCA suggested a requirement of 30years contributions to qualify for the full State Pension. That was due to come into effect in 2020. We will have to await the new Pensions Framework document due in the coming weeks to hopefully clarify.
But I think the Indo headline is just typical of always looking for the negative angle. The existing system which could allow the full State Pension with only 10 years contribution is grossly unfair.


----------



## breege (28 Jan 2018)

In 2012, I started the following discussion in this forum
*Does state contributory pension discriminate against early starters/ broken record?*

*I also wrote to Joan Burton highlighting the problem.  My letters were passed onto Department of Social Welfare.  I received no satisfaction from them other than being told that the changes were being made in the interest of fairness!*


----------



## RETIRED2017 (28 Jan 2018)

Years of contribution stand for nothing people who paid in voluntary prsi contributions totaling a few thousand euro in there life time  receive the full pension, People who paid  several times  that amount each year get the same pension of less??

It was and still is possible to pay a few thousand over  30 years to the government For a PRSI pension worth over 600000 thousand euro ,Others would see one sixth of there payroll go in prsi to qualify,

Some stopped paying voluntary contributions after 10 years because the had the required amount to qualify for full state pension,


I suspect there are a lot of people who don't know that in 2005 The Government of the day changed the way any surplus in the prsi fund is managed ,the 370 million from 2016 is suppose to be ring fenced and kept until needed, Did not take long to be raided by a lobby group,

There was a time when the prsi was in surplus year after year that all changed when the IFA got there way and thousands of people were added in to pull out of the system without without having to pay in,

The IFA got there way again the other day and there are more people added in I have no problem with the 40000 thousand who will gain from it

I would expect that the funding  for these 40000 people should come from general taxation and not from The prsi fund

If you google Prsi fund 2016  you will see  Monday 26 December(Day after christmas ))  Minister for Social Protection Leo Varadker has announced that the Social Insurance fund Which is paid for by employers employees and the self employed PRSI Contributions will finish with a surplus of 377 million euro this year the first thme since 2007.

The surplus for  2017 is expected to be around the same amount ,We are now near the end of January 2018 nobody is saying anything about The surplus in case people cop on about the lobby groups raiding the fund for there own menbers

A little reading if you want to see how little some have to pay in to get Full pension IFA YOUR GUIDE TO CONTRIBUTORY STATE PENSION

Not picking on farmers or the IFA  Lots of interesting information by Googling IFA,

Again I don't mind paying tax for the 40000 Who are benefiting from the changes announced the other day the problem I have  is allowing it to come out of the PRSI fund,

Joe i suspect this is not the direction you wanted this to go in but i could be wrong,


----------



## joe sod (30 Jan 2018)

RETIRED2017 said:


> I suspect there are a lot of people who don't know that in 2005 The Government of the day changed the way any surplus in the prsi fund is managed ,the 370 million from 2016 is suppose to be ring fenced and kept until needed, Did not take long to be raided by a lobby group,



very interesting i was not aware of this. I dont understand why there is so little publicity about all this , no minister is ever tackled by the media about the fact that some people get a full pension after paying very little in. This is grossly unfair to people that have paid in all their lives. The surplus should be invested for the benefit of people like me that have 20 years to go to retirement. My suspicion is that there will be only a small state pension left by then. 
I brought up the issue of immigrants arriving in ireland able to avail of state pension after only 10 years full time work before retirement. In fairness I think very few immigrants  would have benefited from this as they are mostly much younger and not near retirement age and it will be closed off in 2020 anyway.


----------



## RETIRED2017 (30 Jan 2018)

joe sod said:


> very interesting i was not aware of this. I dont understand why there is so little publicity about all this , no minister is ever tackled by the media about the fact that some people get a full pension after paying very little in. This is grossly unfair to people that have paid in all their lives. The surplus should be invested for the benefit of people like me that have 20 years to go to retirement. My suspicion is that there will be only a small state pension left by then.
> I brought up the issue of immigrants arriving in ireland able to avail of state pension after only 10 years full time work before retirement. In fairness I think very few immigrants  would have benefited from this as they are mostly much younger and not near retirement age and it will be closed off in 2020 anyway.



What I am saying is the government owe the Social insurance fund millions of euro each year for all of the people the have added in to the fund  over the years ,

I will  repeat again The government need to ensure the people seeing around one sixth of there payroll going into the Social insurance Fund need to be protected by law before anymore  are allowed in to the fund,


----------



## joe sod (31 Jan 2018)

Even what's left of the "sovereign wealth fund" as it is now grandiously called has been mismanaged for political benefit, they are using it now for pet projects like solar farms , wind turbines, and other pet political projects rather than investing it properly. The norwegian sovereign wealth fund has to invest in a wide range of global equities and assets in order to be properly diversified even in tobacco stocks, it cannot be messed with by politicians


----------



## joe sod (3 Feb 2018)

https://www.independent.ie/business...hed-when-national-scheme-begins-36562482.html

So this is where its going, now talking about ditching the state pension when national pension scheme starts but not for those with no private pension. Also you are allowed to opt out of the national pension scheme so how will that work. So I will be paying my PRSI contributions to some people retiring now that only contributed 520 prsi contributions (10 years work) and who maybe rich, and will be denied any pension myself potentially, there is something really rotten about all this.


----------



## mtk (4 Feb 2018)

joe sod said:


> https://www.independent.ie/business...hed-when-national-scheme-begins-36562482.html



_However, the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection insisted it did not plan to get rid of the pension.


"The Government has previously confirmed its position that the State pension is, and will remain, the bedrock of the Irish pension system," it said in a statement. 


"The department wishes to make it clear a winding down or removal of the State pension (contributory) has not and is not being considered. 


"The reference to such an option, in an unofficial research paper, should not be misconstrued in any way as an indicator of a public policy direction," it added._


Seems to be just an academic option that will not be pursued


----------



## Gordon Gekko (4 Feb 2018)

It genuinely worries me when I think about what might be coming down the tracks.

No doubt the prudent will end up paying for the profligate (as usual).


----------



## mtk (5 Feb 2018)

Gordon Gekko said:


> It genuinely worries me when I think about what might be coming down the tracks.
> 
> No doubt the prudent will end up paying for the profligate (as usual).



i hope your fears are unfounded !


----------

