Public Service Pension - AVCs

Cluedo Monopoly

Hi,

My wife recently joined the public service and their single pension scheme after many years in private sector.

She wants to go about doing AVCs but was told she needs to set up her own private pension to do so. The public sector seems to have a recommended AVC provider but there seems to be expensive management costs up front.

Any advice on doing this ?

tmh106

Before doing anything about setting up a private pension, I'd double check the advice she was given. I'm not a public servant, but it would seem incredible to me if public service employees do not have some kind of AVC scheme that they can contribute to.

Cluedo Monopoly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118746626#Comment_118746626

Yeah she said there is a company that provide a private pension for public sector employees where she pays AVCs direct via her payroll to their fund.

That Irish company takes a sizeable % of the AVCs in the first year as an up front management charge. It depends on the amount of AVC.

There are a number of different companies that do this. She has probably been sent to a prominent company around Christchurch area?

There are others if she looks around, or maybe some of her co-workers nights have avc's with different companies

holliehobbie

To be honest I think they all take a good chunk of the first years payments!

tmh106

Oh, sorry, I missed the part about the exiting public service provider being expensive. If she doesn't want to pay those charges - and if I was in her position, I would be the same - then I suspect that setting up a PRSA is the way to go. But I'm not an expert in this area, so hopefully others here will be able to reply with advice. I seem to recall that there were some posts in the past about PRSA - maybe do a search in here for "PRSA" to see if you find anything useful. You could also try asking on the askaboutmoney site

Geuze

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058236242/public-service-pension-avcs

Search on AAM, plenty of threads about AVCs in PS.

Cornmarket broker charge 595 set-up on some AVCs.

Any public servant is free to set up a PRSA-AVC with a discount broker for zero contribution fees and 1% AMC.

Henry Ford III

Also check to see if there's an option to buy "added years" of service.

Gumbo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118747074#Comment_118747074

I had to stop paying into my PRSA when I joined the PS. Seemly the only additional add on you can do is an AVC.

The J Stands for Jay

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118751687#Comment_118751687

You can do a PRSA AVC when you're on the PS pension scheme.