Contributory pension married couple

johnkieran said:

I'm a couple of years out from reaching the state retirement age and have paid PRSI for over 40 years. Given employee and employer contributions, the amount paid over the years comes to hundreds of thousands. In return I've claimed the occasional dental check up and little if anything else.

Can the government of the day realistically turn around and cut off my entitlement to the contributory state pension if I happen to have a healthy private pension or other means?

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In a word, yes.

After all, up to 31 December 2013, anyone with the appropriate number of PRSI contributions was entitled (a great word "entitled" isn't it?) to be paid the state contributory pension with effect from their 65th birthday. And then one day later, they weren't, but had to wait for another year.

So 'entitlements' can - and do - change over time, although the tendency is for governments to allow long lead-in periods for such changes to give affected people an opportunity to adjust their financial planning accordingly.

and to dampen the enraged response

jpd said:

and to dampen the enraged response

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A strategy that failed abysmally last year when both SF and Willie O'Dea attacked the decision, taken in 2011 (by a FF government that included the one and only Willie O'Dea!) to increase the pension age to 67 in 2022!