So, I have just claimed my Irish pension. I had to list my full employment history including 15 years spent in UK. I had 23 Irish years. My pension was calculated on my Irish contributions only, and my Irish pension is based on having 20-29 years, and is therefore less than the full Irish state pension (€236/week). I did not say I was also applying for a UK pension, and they did not ask. I could have asked for my UK years to be added to my Irish ones but then I'd only get the full Irish pension and no UK one. I had already decided to top up my UK pension, and I am now also receiving that. Definitely it is better financially to claim the two separately but you still declare your work history to both countries. No untruths at all.
Key Post UK State Pension - Make voluntary contributions to qualify for UK pension on top of Irish pension
- Thread starter DannyBoyD
- Start date
Thanks for contributing Stitcher and congratulations on achieving retirement. I recently posted a question on here asking for personal experiences of claiming both pensions (UK and Ireland) but got no responses. This is helpful.
I’m interested in your comment that you could have achieved a full Irish pension if you’d added the UK NICS to your Irish PRSI record. May I ask how do you know this as I’ve seen this come up a few times on AAM and as far as I can recall it’s been discredited.
I’ll separately look up the Irish calculation formula to consider UK NICS and share it here.
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This is the Irish State Pension application form apparently called SPC1.
The intro section states that "If you live in Ireland and you have previously lived or worked in an EU country, the UK or a country with which Ireland has a Bilateral Social Security Agreement, we will apply for a pension to that country on your behalf."
Section 13 of the form asks: "13. Have you ever lived or worked outside of Ireland?"
It seems from your post above that you answered yes to this question .... do you know if the DSP contacted the UK for details of your UK NICS record or not?
Maybe they did (unbeknownst to you) and used these to calculate the best Irish state pension that you could be entitled to. Maybe they also applied for the UK state pension on your behalf as the form says they will but that your application took over?
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These seem to be the latest operational guidelines for the Department of Social Protection (DSP).
There is a section in there dealing with foreign social insurance contributions (in your case NICS).
In a nutshell they may be used:
(1) To help you qualify for an Irish State Pension (This is different from calculating the actual benefit amount).
(2) To calculate your Irish State pension benefit amount by using the following formula:
Calculation of rate of payment
The rate of pension, where insurance contributions in another country are being combined with Irish contributions, is calculated as follows:
Step 1:
The notional pension is calculated. Notional pension is that which would be payable if all social insurance contributions, both full-rate Irish and non-Irish, were treated as Irish contributions. The full-rate Irish and non-Irish reckonable contributions are therefore added together and the total is then divided by the number of years to get the yearly average number of contributions.
Step 2:
The following formula is then used
A multiplied by B divided by C
(AxB)/C
A = the notional rate of pension i.e. the rate (personal plus increase for a qualified adult, if applicable (see below re qualified adult)) which would be payable if all social insurance, both full-rate Irish and foreign, was treated as full rate Irish social insurance.
B = the no. of full rate Irish contributions
C = the total no. of contributions (full rate Irish + foreign)
So my conclusion is that you must declare any foreign work history when applying for an Irish State Pension and if you do, an additional calculation (as above) is performed (in addition to TCA and Average). Presumably the best outcome of the three (or maybe more than 3) is the Irish pension that is offered. I also conclude that declaring foreign work history to the DSP as part of this process has no affect on any UK pension entitlement.
I'm not claiming to be an expert on this but I've seen so many contradictory statements about how this works on AAM, I was pleased to see DannyBoyD make such a definitive statement on the topic and simply asked what was the rationale behind it.
In my case I expect to achieve maximum UK state pension and about 85% of the Irish state pension. I have the time left to pay additional UK NICS (after the min no required of 35) and I am prepared to do so if it means that I can boost my Irish state pension beyond 85%. That's my motivation for trying to establish clarity on this topic - From what I've established so far I think that's not an option.
Therefore for now and from the limited information to hand I believe it is advantageous to apply for both Irish and foreign pensions together through the Irish system. This may change when the UK state retirement age changes to 67 in a few years.
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