Relocating to Ireland with third-country spouse -- how can she qualify for a public pension?

Hello,

I am Irish, 44, and my wife is from SE Asia. We have lived together in the Middle East for 10 years and will be moving to Ireland together permanently shortly.
I have not made enough social insurance contributions yet to qualify for an old age pension, so I plan to work as normal in paid employment so that I contribute enough to become eligible. When we relocate to Ireland we plan on getting citizenship for my wife at the earliest opportunity.

She already has a PPSN number as we own our house in Ireland jointly.

My wife has never lived or worked in Ireland or an EEA country, so we are wondering what she needs to do in order to gain a public pension entitlement. To be specific, we would like to know:

- If she does not work, but is supported by me, upon my retirement would my pension be paid on an individual basis only (i.e. if the pension per week per individual is, say, 200 euros, would I receive 200 euros only or extra due to having a non-eligible spouse)?

- What would she need to do to gain an individual entitlement to a public pension regardless of her relationship to me?

Thanks,

Do you have kids under 12? She could qualify for PRSI credits under the homemakers' scheme without paid employment if so.

If she works in Ireland she will pay PRSI and accumulate pension rights that way (Class A).

If she has >€5k non-wage annual income she pays PRSI too (Class S) and accumulates pension rights. This could be investment income or from a rental property for example.

There are bilateral arrangements for recognition of pension rights for some non-EEA countries. You can look it up but it tends to be places like Canada, US, Australia, so she might not qualify.

If she does not work and does not have a PRSI history to gain entitlement to a State Pension in her own right, then (under the current rules) she could claim the Qualified Adult Dependants Pension assuming she is financially dependent on you.

Be aware there was a recent article about non EU members applying for citizenship who have no work history here.some say the look unfavorable against a non working background.
As your married it might make things easier by normally there is a clause about No access too public resources for Non EU.

An easy way to qualify your wife for an OAP is to purchase a rental property in her name. Once the rental income is more than 5k pa, she will be liable for Class S PRSI and will qualify in her own right.

This does not depend on citizenship - that's a separate matter entirely.

Baby boomer said:

Once the rental income is more than 5k pa, she will be liable for Class S PRSI and will qualify

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Is it "rental income" or "profit from rental income"

Curly Wurly said:

My wife has never lived or worked in Ireland or an EEA country, so we are wondering what she needs to do in order to gain a public pension entitlement. To be specific, we would like to know:

Q1 - If she does not work, but is supported by me, upon my retirement would my pension be paid on an individual basis only (i.e. if the pension per week per individual is, say, 200 euros, would I receive 200 euros only or extra due to having a non-eligible spouse)?

Q2 - What would she need to do to gain an individual entitlement to a public pension regardless of her relationship to me?

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Who knows what the rules governing State Pensions will be in a decade's time, let alone by the time that you turn 68 or 69 or whatever the pension age will be in 2050.

Currently there are two types of State pension - the contributory and the non-contributory. The former is based on your PRSI contributions over your working life and the latter is a means-tested scheme.

So, to answer your two specific questions:

Q1. The present situation is that the State contributory pension is a fixed weekly sum that disregards your marital status. But, you can also apply for an additional weekly payment in respect of your "Qualified Adult" (spouse) - however this, unlike your own pension, will be paid only if your spouse passes a means test.

Q2. To obtain a personal pension, she would need either (a) to have paid sufficient number of PRSI contributions to entitle her to the State Contributory pension (currently the entry level is 520 paid contributions, representing 10 years of work); or (b) to pass the means test that would make her eligible to receive the State non-contributory pension.

asdfg said:

Is it "rental income" or "profit from rental income"

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Apologies, I could have made that a bit clearer. Profit = Revenue - Costs. I suppose colloquially, I'd regard that as "income" as it's what you pay income tax on. However, some people regard "income" as revenue, from which you'd subtract costs to get profit. (c/f income and expenditure account)

Anyway, in this case, it's the rental profit (rent received minus allowable costs) that needs to be in excess of 5k.

But I'd call that "rental income!"

Shirazman said:

Q2. To obtain a personal pension, she would need either (a) to have paid sufficient number of PRSI contributions to entitle her to the State Contributory pension (currently the entry level is 520 paid contributions, representing 10 years of work);

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I thought that was supposed to be changing in 2022, whereby your level of pension will be based on the number of years of paid employment you have worked. Therefore to qualify for a full pension you need to have 40 years of paid contributions not 10 years.
It was perceived as very unfair that people could qualify for a full pension after only having 10 years of paid employment history where another person that may have worked nearly 40 years but with gaps in their employment history were falling short of full pension entitlement.

joe sod said:

I thought that was supposed to be changing in 2022, whereby your level of pension will be based on the number of years of paid employment you have worked. Therefore to qualify for a full pension you need to have 40 years of paid contributions not 10 years.
It was perceived as very unfair that people could qualify for a full pension after only having 10 years of paid employment history where another person that may have worked nearly 40 years but with gaps in their employment history were falling short of full pension entitlement.

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That's correct. However, nowhere did I state that 10 years' of paid contributions would result in her receiving the full state contributory pension! All that I wrote was that 520 paid contributions was the required entry level.