2 pension contributions short of qualifying for state pension ...options for overseas person

Thywillbedone said:
Are you sure this is right? ChatGPT says the following:

"Ireland does not calculate pensions solely based on your contributions relative to its domestic maximum requirement of 40 years. Instead, EU rules take into account your total contributions across all countries and calculate your share based on the portion contributed in Ireland.

If you had contributed solely to Ireland (e.g., 10 years out of 40), then you'd receive 1/4 of the maximum Irish pension. But since international contributions are involved, the pro-rata method is used instead."

It seems that being short of the 10 years does not matter using the pro rata method (per ChatGPT: "With only 9 years of Irish contributions, you fall short of this threshold. However, EU aggregation rules allow you to combine your Irish and UK contributions to meet the minimum.".

My current expected entitlement would just be smaller e.g. 9 years (Ireland) + 35 yeards (UK) = 9/44 * max Irish pension = 20.5%.

I am going to see if there are any uncounted contributions from my teenage days and go from there as it would be nice to have the round 10 years.
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Your pension will be calculated in several different ways- and you get the most favourable result paid as pension. Unless you insist- for whatever reason- for a different payment than the one offered to you.
There is one thing I forgot. In a pro rata pension calculation your 20 Irish credits will be taken into account as well, since you made it across the 520 contribution threshold. So that gives your Irish pension part another boost.
Good luck with your search for any past and so far not registered contributions. You never know- may be something comes up!
 
Forumuser said:
You need to look closer at the method of how the Irish pension part is calculated.
In a pro rata pension- and that is the name of the pension we are talking about- the entire Irish contributions and entire UK contributions are added up- with special rules for the overlapping times.
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Can you explain what happens when UK Voluntary contributions overlap with Irish Paid or Credited contributions.
 
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In case of overlapping ( means you have contributions or credits in the same time window in both countries), all your UK contributions will be ignored in the calculation of a pro rata Irish part pension. The Irish Pension Office will instead only take your Irish contributions and your Irish credits into consideration. UK contributions will only be counted if there are no contributions or credits in a time window on the Irish side.

You should always try to qualify in each country under their own rules. You can apply then in each country for a separate independent pension. The overlapping does not matter in that case.
 
So my situation is I have 350 Irish Reckonable Contributions and 4 years (208) contributions from paid employment in UK (1980-83)
I also have approx 400 UK Voluntary Contributions that overlap with Irish Credited Contributions and an opportunity to make another 450 UK Voluntary Contributions that would overlap with a mix of Paid and Credited Irish Contributions.

So, based on your earlier response, All the UK Voluntary Contributions will be ignored by The Irish Pension Office and the 208 UK (1980-83) paid contributions, that do not overlap with Irish contributions, will be combined with the Irish 350 Paid contributions. This gives me 558 paid contributions which is above the 520 threshold to qualify for an Irish pension.

The pension payable would be pro-rata based on the split between Irish and UK reckonable contributions.

I believe that the Convention on Social Security between IE and UK explicitly excludes Voluntary Contributions from the "Rules to Prevent Overlapping".

Under UK rules my paid and voluntary contributions will exceed 10 years which is the threshold to qualify for a UK pension. The UK pension can therefore be claimed independently without reference to my Irish Contribution record.

Based on your knowledge of the workings of "the rules", does this look correct?
 
browneowl said:
But are you sure this is correct?
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We’re all just anonymous pseudonyms here!

But in my experience the greatest expertise on this topic is found in this sub-forum.

Neither DWP in the UK nor DSP in Ireland has very much interest in publicising that you can qualify for two full state pensions.

I wouldn’t have realised had it not been for my bad habits of spending time on AAM.
 
I am 100% sure that it works like stated above.
Here you have the relevant legislation- you can check for yourself:

And here is something from a guy who worked in the Pension Office for many years and now runs a consultant business making use of all the knowledge he acquired:


Don't hope for any answers from the Pension Office in Sligo. You get all sorts of stuff from all sorts of people in there- if you get any answer at all. If you are lucky to get an answer by a person working there, you might get a completely opposite opinion from somebody else in there if you ask the same question a month later.
The ONLY time you get a valid answer to all your questions is when your pension application is decided on by an officer.
 
Amazing response, thanks a lot.

Now I need to think about the "transition" to retirement.
Is there a way, other than by applying for a pension, to get a definitive answer to the question "how much pension will I get" and to see how it is calculated?

Given that there is now the possibility to defer pension for up to 4 years, it could be that, if there are any nasty surprises in the amount offered, it would make sense to defer the start of pension in order to gain extra "stamps".

Does DSP allow the date of pension to be changed once they have made an offer?
 
I suppose you could try a professional PRSI and pension consultant. He may might work it out for you for an agreed fee.
You also can try your luck and do the maths yourself- plenty of info how to do it can be found in this forum or in the internet.
You don't have to accept the offer from the Pension Office. As long as you have not started to draw down your pension, you can always withdraw your application and come back another day with a new one.
You can supply further PRSI contributions through work until you are 70. It is up to yourself what you do.
Always remember that none of us lives forever. You can always get sick and perish very quickly. Make sure that any more PRSI contributions give yourself a really good improvement compared to what you have already acquired. A few Euro more are not worth the trouble.
 
I understand that if you have an ARF over €5000 Pa then you also pay PRSI contributions up to when you draw your state pension so that would add to your total of paid contributions.
 
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