State contributions/ benefit at retirement

S class said:

It's explained here
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Apologies if you’ve been asked this before S Class but in the case of someone retiring early at age 57 and setting up an ARF which I believe is subject to normal PRSI deductions, does that person ever have to work again to be eligible for the over 65 payment? The individual will have in excess of 1500 paid contributions by then.
 
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Even if they continue getting class S contributions up to age 66 they will have a problem using their S class contributions to qualify for 65s benefit. They will meet the rule to have 52 class S in their 63rd year, but they would also need to have ceased self employment somewhere between age 63 to 65.

If they have some other form of self employment (say for instance they were a plumber) and they ceased this employment they would qualify for 65s benefit.

If their only "self employment" is their ARF they might manage to qualify if they exhaust their ARF before their 65th birthday. I would not chance this because the wording tends to imply that they need to cease their main employment and this might not apply to ARFs.

All this is impractical for a person with an ARF and no other self employment.

If the person you are talking about is an ex PAYE worker, their best method is to qualify under the class A system. They should sign on for class A credits and continue claiming credits at least until the end of the year of their 63rd birthday.

It is allowable to be paying class S Prsi and claiming class A credits at the same time.

They will then just need 13 weeks of paid class A Prsi contributions to qualify for 65s benefit. These 13 weeks must be in the same calendar year. They can be in the year of the person's 61st, 62nd, 63rd, 64th or 65th birthdays.

So to answer your question, they most likely need to work again.
13 weeks of employment with minimum earnings of 38 euro per week will be needed.
3 hours work per week on minimum pay will suffice.
 
S class said:
Even if they continue getting class S contributions up to age 66 they will have a problem using their S class contributions to qualify for 65s benefit. They will meet the rule to have 52 class S in their 63rd year, but they would also need to have ceased self employment somewhere between age 63 to 65.

If they have some other form of self employment (say for instance they were a plumber) and they ceased this employment they would qualify for 65s benefit.

If their only "self employment" is their ARF they might manage to qualify if they exhaust their ARF before their 65th birthday. I would not chance this because the wording tends to imply that they need to cease their main employment and this might not apply to ARFs.

All this is impractical for a person with an ARF and no other self employment.

If the person you are talking about is an ex PAYE worker, their best method is to qualify under the class A system. They should sign on for class A credits and continue claiming credits at least until the end of the year of their 63rd birthday.

It is allowable to be paying class S Prsi and claiming class A credits at the same time.

They will then just need 13 weeks of paid class A Prsi contributions to qualify for 65s benefit. These 13 weeks must be in the same calendar year. They can be in the year of the person's 61st, 62nd, 63rd, 64th or 65th birthdays.

So to answer your question, they most likely need to work again.
13 weeks of employment with minimum earnings of 38 euro per week will be needed.
3 hours work per week on minimum pay will suffice.
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To clarify the individual was never self employed and was a PAYE earner all of her life.

The relevant Gov.ie website page that you included in an earlier post says it:

“ is a payment for people aged between 65 and 66 years who have ceased employment or self-employment”

It doesn’t seem to state WHEN you must have ceased employment. Can you say why you conclude employment must have ended when you say it does? Thanks S class.
 
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Kev1964 said:
doesn’t seem to state WHEN you must have ceased employment. But you seem to saying that the employment end date must be between age 63 and 65. Is that right?
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That's the rule for qualifing using the class S self employment rules. There is a separate section in the guidelines dealing with class S.

The person you are describing will not be able to qualify using their class S Prsi.

65s benefit is basically a dressed up version of Jobseeks benefit.
Just concentrate on the class A rules.
They must be fully unemployed on the day of their 65th birthday to qualify.
Their problem is that to qualify they also need to have 13 paid Prsi contributions in the time period I stated in #22
 
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