Advice welcome.
We should have realised this much earlier (could probably have bought back a year) but my wife told on retirement that she has just below the 520 (10 years) paid full rate contributions. She has something like 480. So less than a year short.
It is only AFTER reaching 520 that other years for child care and for caring for an elderly relative full time would be taken into account. These would total something close to 20 years. So instead of getting a fairly full Irish State pension she will receive nothing (as far as we understand).
The issue we feel is profoundly unfair, is that she was working and would easily have had more than 10 years (520). But she chose to leave work and care for an elderly parent, full time 24/7 care in our home. This was extremely demanding. It also saved the state costs of care. Of course when she did this we had no idea how long her parent would live. It ended up being nearly 5 years. My wife went back to work but just missed reaching 520.
Carers seem to be treated badly by the state in regard to pension contributions. She got 2 years 'reckonable credited' as a carer when she got carer's benefit (this lasted only 2 years, she got nothing credited for the other 3 years) but these do NOT count to the reckonable paid contributions. But the whole problem is that family carers can't be in paid work. (I wonder how family volunteer full time carers ever qualify for an Irish state pension since they are not in 'paid' employment - even though they are working in incredibly demanding jobs).
In effect it seems she will be financially penalised by the state for the rest of her life for caring 'too long' for her parent.
We have appealed the decision (you get a very short time to respond and appeal) and asked on the basis of fairness and justice that we be allowed to 'buy back' retrospectively the 40 weeks or so that she is short of the magic number of 520. We have not heard a decision yet.
We should have realised this much earlier (could probably have bought back a year) but my wife told on retirement that she has just below the 520 (10 years) paid full rate contributions. She has something like 480. So less than a year short.
It is only AFTER reaching 520 that other years for child care and for caring for an elderly relative full time would be taken into account. These would total something close to 20 years. So instead of getting a fairly full Irish State pension she will receive nothing (as far as we understand).
The issue we feel is profoundly unfair, is that she was working and would easily have had more than 10 years (520). But she chose to leave work and care for an elderly parent, full time 24/7 care in our home. This was extremely demanding. It also saved the state costs of care. Of course when she did this we had no idea how long her parent would live. It ended up being nearly 5 years. My wife went back to work but just missed reaching 520.
Carers seem to be treated badly by the state in regard to pension contributions. She got 2 years 'reckonable credited' as a carer when she got carer's benefit (this lasted only 2 years, she got nothing credited for the other 3 years) but these do NOT count to the reckonable paid contributions. But the whole problem is that family carers can't be in paid work. (I wonder how family volunteer full time carers ever qualify for an Irish state pension since they are not in 'paid' employment - even though they are working in incredibly demanding jobs).
In effect it seems she will be financially penalised by the state for the rest of her life for caring 'too long' for her parent.
We have appealed the decision (you get a very short time to respond and appeal) and asked on the basis of fairness and justice that we be allowed to 'buy back' retrospectively the 40 weeks or so that she is short of the magic number of 520. We have not heard a decision yet.