Early Retirement

Gillie

Hi All,

Posting here on behalf of someone who doesn't have Web Access!

Individual is 53 years old.
Wants to Retire at 55 (at which point he will be 30 years in the job!). Wondering where he can find out how much of his pension he is entitled to.
The place he works has come under the umbrella of the HSE recently but there is still a lot of question marks over who's actually running the place.

Any idea where to start here?

Thanks

Mrs. MacGyver

The pensions board website might be the best place to start in order to source information - http://www.pensionsboard.ie/


In general the following are the qualifying contribution contitions for the Contributiry State Pension from age 66 (formerally Old Age Contributory Pension).

First contribution condition - age at entry

A person must have started paying social insurance employment contributions at full or modified rate before a certain date, depending on date of birth, as follows:

Before age 60 if born before 1 July 1917
Before age 58 if born between 1 July 1917 and 31 March 1919 (both dates inclusive)
Before age 57 if born between 1 April 1919 and 30 September 1922 (both dates inclusive)
Before age 56 if born on or after 1 October 1922
Insurance prior to 1953 - National Health Insurance contributions paid prior to 1953 are reckonable in order to satisfy the condition of entry into social insurance before a specified date.

Note: Normally the date of starting insurable employment is taken as the date of the first paid employment contribution, regardless of whether it is at full rate or modified rate. However for a person who has a mixture of full and modified rate contributions and paid his/her first full-rate employment contribution before 6 April 1991, the most favourable date of starting insurable employment is taken.

Second contribution condition - number of full-rate contributions paid

A person reaching age 66 on or before 5 April 2002 must have paid 156 full-rate employment contributions or, if the yearly average (see third condition below) falls between 10 and 19, 260 full-rate employment contributions.
A person reaching age 66 between 6 April 2002 and 5 April 2012 (both dates inclusive) must have paid 260 full-rate employment contributions.
Note: There is one exception. Persons who commenced paying high rate voluntary contributions on or before 6 April 1997 will need only 156 full-rate employment contributions paid if the yearly average is 20 or more.>
A person reaching age 66 on or after 6 April 2012 must have paid 520 full-rate employment contributions, or, if at least 260 full-rate employment contributions are paid, the balance of the 520 can be made up with high rate voluntary contributions
Note: There is one exception. Persons who:
- commenced paying high rate voluntary contributions on or before 6 April 1997, and
- have 156 full-rate employment contributions paid, and
- have a yearly average of 20 contributions or more will satisfy this condition if they can make up the balance of the 520 with high rate voluntary contributions.

Insurance prior to 1953 - National Health Insurance contributions paid prior to 1953 are reckonable in order to satisfy the condition of having a certain number of contributions paid. Every 2 such contributions are counted as 3, and any odd contribution is counted as 2.

Third contribution condition

The standard yearly average test

Maximum rate of pension is payable where a person has a "yearly average" of at least 48. The yearly average is the average number of contributions paid and/or credited per year over the period from 1953*, or from the year of starting insurable employment, if later, to the end of the tax year before reaching pension age (66).

* See also "Special State Pension (Contributory) for persons with social insurance contributions paid prior to 1953" below

The alternative contribution test

Maximum rate pension is also payable where a person has an "alternative yearly average" of at least 48. The alternative yearly average is the average number of contributions paid and/or credited over the period from April 1979 to the end of the tax year before reaching pension age (66). The "alternative yearly average" applies only to persons who reached age 66 on or after 6 April 1992.

A reduced rate pension is payable where a person has a yearly average of between 10 and 47. (See rates structure below).

Pension Age
Pension age is currently 66 years. It was gradually reduced from age 70 to age 66 over the period from 1973 to 1977. Persons born before 1 January 1912 may have a pension age other than 66 used when calculating the yearly average, as follows:

Persons born between Pension ages which (both dates inclusive) may be used

3 Jan 1909 to 31 Dec 1911 66 or 67 years
5 Jan 1907 to 2 Jan 1909 66 or 68 years
1 July 1905 to 4 Jan 1907 66 or 69 years
prior to 1 July 1905 66 or 70 years
Points to note:
Insurance prior to 1953

Where National Health Insurance contributions have been counted for the first or second condition, the yearly average is counted from the start of the 1953 contribution year - 5 January 1953 in the case of a man, and 6 July 1953 in the case of a woman.

Rounding up:

In calculating the yearly average, a fraction of a whole number consisting of one half or more is rounded up to the nearest whole number e.g. 9.5 is rounded up to 10, 47.5 is rounded up to 48.