UK and Irish pensions

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Alongwait

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Hi. I'm living in uk and receive a uk state pension, I also lived and worked in Ireland paying tax and insurance, 2003 to 2019.i applied for my irish pension in Oct last year and I'm still waiting to hear anything from uk International pensions or state pensions in sligo, has anybody any past experience of waiting this long.?
 
Did you apply for the Irish pension, directly to Ireland, or at the same time, and to the same place , as you applied for the UK one?
 
Pension office in Sligo is totally overworked. I applied for a contributory pension with some foreign years in it in the first week of January. They only got around to ask for my foreign contribution record two weeks ago. Answering emails is not done- or only half hearted after some weeks or so. Phoning them is an option- but they only tell you that the matter is being dealt with and you will get your answer in due course.
Be prepared to wait for a long long time if you have a mix of Irish and foreign contributions.
 
jpd said:
That's why they recommend that you apply well in advance
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I was told six months in advance. So that's exactly what I'm going to do. I'll be applying about this time next year.

There's not really an excuse for a delay , as it's a pretty simple calculation.

If there is a delay, I presume it gets backdated to your birthday.
 
Lisgoold said:
Did you apply for the Irish pension, directly to Ireland, or at the same time, and to the same place , as you applied for the UK one?
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I contacted the sligo office first to apply, then applied to the UK International pension department, I was told to apply 6 months before my retirement age, which I did, I've received, 2 simple letters from the UK, simply stating this may take some time!!, that was last October, I'm still waiting for a reply from anyone .
 
Alongwait said:
I contacted the sligo office first to apply, then applied to the UK International pension department, I was told to apply 6 months before my retirement age, which I did, I've received, 2 simple letters from the UK, simply stating this may take some time!!, that was last October, I'm still waiting for a reply from anyone .
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But they put the UK pension into payment on time?
I spoke to them to clarify how to apply, as the UK send invite to claim letter 3 months before birthday. Ireland says, apply six months before. Yet you're supposed to claim from one place only, so whichever way I do it, appears to be wrong.
 
You are meant to claim in the country you reside in, they will forward your request to the other countries

You can claim in each country separately, but I am not sure that this is the most effective way to go about claiming
 
jpd said:
You are meant to claim in the country you reside in, they will forward your request to the other countries

You can claim in each country separately, but I am not sure that this is the most effective way to go about claiming
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That's what I was trying to clarify. Currently in the UK. If I wait till three months, then I'm going to be late claiming Irish one. They said (Newcastle) that they would send me a form six months before, and I'm to return it to them , not Sligo. Then, three months later, I'd get the letter to claim UK one.

I'll report back how it all pans out!
 
I applied to Sligo 6 months in advance of the due date, as recommended for both Irish & UK pensions.
A few weeks before the due date - I rang them with a query on something, and they told me they hadn't got around to my application yet. Then my UK pension didn't arrive as expected, and I was told no application had yet been received (via Sligo). I was able to complete the application for the UK pension over the phone in about 10 minutes (I had all the details to hand from the form I filled in previously. I (optimistically) assume that Sligo would have submitted my details eventually - but much faster doing it myself.

So, my recommendation is to apply separately for both (assuming there are no complications and you are keeping the pensions separate, and not using credits from one for the other).
The positive side is that once these issues were dealt with all has been OK since.
 
euroDilbert said:
A few weeks before the due date - I rang them with a query on something, and they told me they hadn't got around to my application yet.
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It’s absolutely ridiculous to treat people who’ve paid hundreds of thousands in PRSI for decades this way.

A straightforward application should take no more than a month to process.
 
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