New State Pension qualifying years and contributions paid in other EU countries
15 replies
1.1K views
Quick links
Essential Money | Who & Where are you? | Work & Benefits | Household and travel | Shopping & Freebies | About MSE | The MoneySavers Arms | Covid-19 & Coronavirus Support
Replies
You look to be in a sweet spot despite Brexit.
It appears from xylophone's link to the Irish Times article that it is only possible to pay additional voluntary contributions to the Irish scheme if you already have the minimum 10 years.
However the other link is interesting:
https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/social_welfare/social_welfare_payments/older_and_retired_people/state_pension_contributory.html
I'm certainly not counting on getting something from the time there, but if I could know in advance , for definite, that I was going to, I'd probably change my plans and dates a little.
If you have worked in two EU countries it's double bubble pension-wise as once you have been enrolled in a scheme you can generally pay voluntary contributions for years when you were working in the other country. The Irish system looks very complicated but if you take the UK n theory you could work 5 years here the move to Ireland for the rest of your working life but continue to make Class 2 NI contributions in the UK at £150/year. For total voluntary contributions of just £4500 you would buy an index-linked pension of £8767/year which you could take alongside the pension you earned working in Ireland.
Irish state pension is also far more generous than the UK one – even now. So worth keeping some entitlement – and as has been said buying added years.
My father only worked for 10 years in Ireland in a low wage job in the late 1950s/early 60s – but 30 years here.
He received 240 euro a week from the Irish authorities in state pension – including a 100 euro top up as my mother ‘s UK state pension was below £100 a week - £60 more than his UK state pension (including SERPS). In effect the Irish government topped up my mum's UK state pension based on my father's Irish PRSI contributions alone (all before they married) despite her never having worked there (she worked for the NHS as a nurse for a decade!). Shows how shockingly poor our state pension is!
There is an Irish specific forum covering those issues – which is a useful source of Irish advice.
https://www.askaboutmoney.com/
As others have said, I also believe that you will be entitled to something from the Ireland state pension.
But it's difficult to ascertain what exactly you will be able to claim when the time comes as Ireland is currently transitioning from one state pension method to another. I think at the moment they're actually overlapping, but a new total contribution approach has been introduced and is supposed to be fully rolled out in 2020 but may have been delayed because of Brexit taking priority.
So it's going to mirror the UK method eventually, the rumours are that 40 years will get you the maximum pension amount of 248.30 Euros a week.
So at the moment I would expect you get a pro rata 6/40 of that.
Did you work 6 full calendar years?
Ireland has a pre-entry credit rule, whereas no matter which date of the year you started work in Ireland, they will give you credits backdated to January 1st of that year. So depending on your dates, you could end up with 7 years on your record.
I don't think you said how old you are but note that in 2021 the Ireland state pension age will rise to 67 years.