HSE Pension Class D1 - Job Sharing 26 years, HSE pension forecast less than state pension

Hi There,
My wife has been employed with HSE since early 90s, but 50/50 job sharing for 26 years and if she works until age 60. she will only have 25 years actual service. (She also took a career break for a few years). Her current pension forecast is approx. 9.5k per year, (based on job share final salary) which is less than state pension and she is not entitled to state pension as she only paid Class D1 PRSI.
Is there any entitlement to state pension top-up here ?
I have read that final salary for pension purposes is the 3 highest years from last 10 years service .
If she was allowed to work 3 years at full time , instead of job-share before retirement, would this effectively double her retirement income ?
Is there any other options to increase the chances of state pension ?
Can she buy back Higher class PRSI for her 4 years of career break ?
Any advice appreciated

So the salary is 30,400, that seems low, are you sure the calculations are correct?

25/80 = 9,500

80/80 = 30,400

mick999 said:

I have read that final salary for pension purposes is the 3 highest years from last 10 years service .
If she was allowed to work 3 years at full time , instead of job-share before retirement, would this effectively double her retirement income ?

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No, this will not change her pensionable salary, which is the full time equivalent salary for the position she holds at retirement. So, if she is on 50/50 part-time and getting €25k pa then her pensionable salary is €50k. It is her length of service that changes - so 40 years served at 50/50 part-time = 20 years pensionable service. Or 40 years at 60/40 part-time would be 24 years pensionable service, etc.

Of course if she worked full time for the final 3 years she would gain 3 years pensionable service instead of 1.5 years.

mick999 said:

(based on job share final salary)

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This seems to imply that you are using the job-share reduced wages in the pension calculations.

This is wrong.

When estimating the pension, use the salary for the full-time job.

The pension penalty comes from the reduced service. There isn't another penalty for the reduced earnings.

With your wife on pension earnings of only 183 euro per week you could apply for an increase for a qualified adult in addition to your own contributory pension. When you start your Contributory pension claim, you would get an increase for her regardless of her age. This payment will be reduced by a means test, but some extra payment would be achievable.

If this payment is not available to you, she could try to get some full rate paid Prsi contributions up to age 70.

Does she currently have any Reckonable paid contributions ? These could possibly be from her pre establishment days.

She would need employment to reach a target of 260 reckonable paid contributions. She could get these from part time employment. She would only need earnings of 38 euro per week, so 3 hours minimum wage would be sufficient. With 260 full rate contributions she could qualify for a pro rata contributory pension.

If she manages to reach the 260 level she could then make voluntary contributions up to age 70 to hopefully reach 520 full rate contributions. This would give her a larger pension.

In either of these to situations she would also gain up to 2 extra years of change of status credits and possibly some pre entry credits.

She could also aim to qualify for Benefit Payment 65.

There is information about this on this thread.

Thanks for the replies ...
I was using my wife's final job share salary in the HSE estimator, rather than the full time equivalent salary.
That makes sense now, as has been mentioned earlier, it would have been a double whammy otherwise.
Thanks again

Also I think that her pension will be based on final salary and not an average of best three consecutive years. I think it is only pensionable allowances that are calculated as the average of three years. See https://healthservice.hse.ie/staff/pensions/retirement-planning/#how-your-pension-is-calculated

poorrelative said:

Also I think that her pension will be based on final salary and not an average of best three consecutive years.

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Her pension will be based on her final salary if she doesn't change grade, If she changes grade in the last 3 years, the pension is pro-rata.

Her pension will be the actual full salary of someone working full time on her grade as others have mentioned, divided by 80 and multiplied by the actual years' service adjusted to take into account the reduced working pattern. The pension will then increase in line with pay rises in the Public Sector over her lifetime.

Hi Again and thanks for all the very helpful replies.
My wife applied for her PRSI record and it has thrown up some interesting issues.
Before she was made permanent, she worked for a few years on A1 contributions and has 369 reckonable credits.
Can she apply for the home-makers scheme for her 5 years not working, which could bring her above the 520 limit for a state pension, or are these credits counted as reckonable ?
Can she be in receipt of a state pension and the HSE pension from her different forms of PRSI, while working for the same organisation ?
Thanks in advance for any help ..

mick999 said:

My wife applied for her PRSI record and it has thrown up some interesting issues.
Before she was made permanent, she worked for a few years on A1 contributions and has 369 reckonable credits.

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Was she in the PS pension scheme during this service? Quite probably not. If not, she can "buy back" this service now or at any time up to retirement (but not after). This is good value. She should enquire through her HR.

mick999 said:

Can she be in receipt of a state pension and the HSE pension from her different forms of PRSI, while working for the same organisation ?

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There is no problem with that. Whether and how she meets the minimum PRSI requirement for the State Pension I'll leave to others to say.

She has enough (over 260) class A contributions to claim a pro rata pension at age 66.

She can apply for home carers credits.
Home carers credits cannot be used to reach the 520 reckonable paid level.

When she retires she should get at least 1 paid class A contribution.This will give her extra change of status credits.
These also cannot be used to teach the 520 reckonable paid contributions level. These and her home carers credits would increase her pro rata pension entitlement.

After she retires from class D employment she can gain extra reckonable paid contributions to bring her up to the 520 level.

These are available up to age 70 and could be class S from ARF drawdowns, class A employment or voluntary contributions.

She would get a larger pension of she reaches the 520 reckonable paid contributions level.

See post #5 for more information.

There is also the possibility to claim for an increase for a qualified adult if she meets the means test. If her PS pension is only 183 euro per week and she doesn't have much savings she might get get an increase for a qualified adult payment.

How do you apply for a pro-rata pension ? Is it automatically given based on the person PRSI record when the normal application for COAP is being processed or is it a separate form to fill-out?

If you apply for the COAP with between 260 and 519 full rate reckonable paid contributions and your modified paid contributions, your COAP will be calculated using the pro rata formula. The same form is used for all COAP claims.