Contributory pension

Keant1591 said:
There are also 2 bins in social welfare with p35s they were unable to process years ago. If you worked somewhere in the 70s and it is not showing up on your records they can check for you.
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But under the current averaging system, would someone with a big gap in contributions be better off if they weren't so assiduous in pushing Welfare to check out that second bin, in which they might have a different number attached to their name anyway ?
 
early Riser - how would they be better off by not checking it under the averaging system if it was not there first employment or if they had less than 520 contributions showing up. There are names in the bin where digits are wrong on the handwritten p35s at the time etc, that’s why they are there.
 
Of course they have to have the the 520 paid contributions first - I was starting from that assumption.

Otherwise I am not so sure - it is a question.

Lets say someone worked (and paid social insurance) for a few years in the early seventies. Then the left insurable employment - perhaps a period abroad and/or a period home-making. They then return to work in the late nineties and are now retiring. If they get their PRSI record and it says that their first "stamp" was in the late nineties and they have a continuous record since, might they be better of if they just left it at that ? Or would they be better off if they got onto Welfare to hunt down their earlier 3-4 year record from the early seventies - which perhaps has a different number attached to it and which would leave a 20 years + contribution gap, diminishing their overall average ?
 
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I agree with what you are saying Early Riser.

However in my wife's case, she will not have the 520 paid contributions since returning to work in the late 90's.

So she HAS to go back to previous employments from the 1970's to have these contributions included to bring her contributions over the 520. Unfortunately she had a different PRSI number then which she cannot locate. During that period she worked for four companies. Three of these no longer exist. What can she do about that?

Around about 1980 she decided to sign on for credits out in Dun Laoghaire. When she contacted them they could not locate any details for her under her original PRSI number so they allocated her a temporary new PRSI number. Then for some reason they never gave her a new permanent PRSI number but told her instead to sign using MY PRSI number? So she signed on for about 5 years using my PRSI number. Was it normal for wives to use their husband's PRSI number during that time?
 
Tintagel - I understand your points. Your wife really needs to establish her old records - she doesn't have her 520 paid contributions otherwise. Unfortunately I am unable to advise on how best to do so. Hopefully others can give you a steer on this.
 
Yes it was normal for a wife to use husbands prsi number, when I got married they changed my number to his and just stuck a W on the end for Wife! Years later and they reverted again to individual numbers, don't think though I had the same one as original.
 
Thank you. You have just jarred my memory.

I believe that I had an "Insurance" number back in the day. Then my husband's PRSI number. Then a different number PPS when I went back to work.

The problem I have is that I know my current number, I know my husband's number but I don't know my original number.

Is it possible under the current search system for the Department of Social Protection to track me back all the way to the 1970's if I don't know my original number? I would have been single then?
 
I would imagine they would have a good try, I doubt many people have their original single name number, I certainly don't and worked for several years under whatever number that was. However I have never checked up on whether a record of it exists or not, big employer who is still around so hopefully wouldn't be a problem anyway.
 
The credits she signed for are no good if she does not have 520 paid credits which she doesn’t on paper yet. Has she any time to pay more? If not you need to get back to prsi with as much details as possible about where she worked in the past, they should be able to locate some details.
 
When I got married I changed to my husband's PPS number with a W on the end. I was able to get a contribution record which included contributions under both numbers.
I have now been changed back to my original PPS number (since the introduction of Public Service cards).
It is possible that the Department have all your records continuously, if they updated your records when you got married.
 
Just seeing this thread here about the 520 PRSI rule.
It seems to me that you would need 520 paid PRSI contributions now to get a minimum of the contributory pension. That means 520 PRSI contributions achieved through either work or self employment only- but not through voluntary contributions.
How would it work out in a EU pro rata pension when a person does not have the required 520 Irish PRSI contributions- but can satisfy this rule by providing contributions from another EU country ( Not the UK)? Would full rate foreign voluntary PRSI contributions be accepted- or do they also must have been gained by employment only?
 
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