British and Irish State Pensions. Advice needed.

xylophone

Have you checked your UK state pension forecast?

https://www.gov.uk/check-state-pension

Battlecat2016

2031. On the National Pensions Helpline, go to 'calculator' and on the drop down, State Pension Calculator (contributory). I did that, filled in the boxes and it said €289.30   Sorry for the late reply, I'm in the middle of doing the grass!!   

eastcorkram

Battlecat2016 said:

2031. On the National Pensions Helpline, go to 'calculator' and on the drop down, State Pension Calculator (contributory). I did that, filled in the boxes and it said €289.30   Sorry for the late reply, I'm in the middle of doing the grass!!   

When you claim in 2031, it will be done as 30% yearly average, plus 70% total contribution, so, rough calculations that would be 30% of €289, so that's 86.70, plus 70% of the TCA new method, so that is 70% of €167, so €116.90. So together that's around €203 per week at today's rate 

If you could have claimed in 2024, you would have got €289. If you had to wait till 2034, you would get €167. 

eastcorkram

You can see why they're changing it.

eastcorkram

https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/social-welfare/older-and-retired-people/state-pension-contributory/#ff6928

eastcorkram

For a clearer example of why it's being changed. Under the old method, someone turns up for the first time in Ireland aged 56, works for 10 years. They will have 520 contributions, at an average of 52, which will get them full pension of €289. 

New method, which will be fully in by 2034. Same situation, they'll still have 520 contributions, and that will entitle them to 25% of the pension, as it's a quarter of the required 2080, so they'd get €72. 

poseidon1

Very interesting to see Ireland trying to address its demographic state pension time bomb with their changes to reduce the entitlement in years to come.
This is despite currently having  quite a low debt to GDP ratio (which the UK could only dream of attaining) and a GDP per capita twice that of the UK. 

One wonders at what stage any UK government will properly grasp the nettle of taming  its unsustainable triple lock state pension.

In the meantime the OP should certainly fill his boots as much as he is able, with topping up his UK state pension.

jem16

Battlecat2016 said:

Hello,

I'm British, a UK resident and I currently have 21 years of UK National Insurance contributions built up. 

I also lived and worked in the Republic of Ireland and have built up 24 years of PRSI (Irish National Insurance) contributions.

I therefore qualify for a full Irish State Pension but I will not qualify for the full UK State Pension as I won't have 35 Years of NI contributions.

35 years isn’t applicable to anyone with a pre April 2016 NI Record. You could need anything from 26 to 50 years for a full new state pension. You need to get yourself a state pension forecast and find out what you are due to receive. You may have gaps that are possible to fill and if they were when you were working in Ireland (all depends on dates) then you may be able to get the much cheaper Class 2 voluntary contributions. Basically a bargain.