State pension if retiring early

Once you have 2080 weeks contributions you'll get full pension ..thats 40 years X 52 weeks.

If you started work at 18 and worked straight through to 58 youd have that built up….

what happens if you have 39 years X 52 weeks? I assume you could work on for another year but what if you wanted to finish at 66? Just wondering

You can request your contributions history with or without a mygov login ….

1. With a mygov userid you will get your history in a PDF file in a matter of minutes
2. Without a mygov login, you will get a hardcopy statement in the post after a few weeks

If you are or it looks like you will be shy of 2,080 contributions by the time you reach pension age (currently 66), you can topup with credits. You can get credits in a number of ways…

• You'll automatically get them while collecting Jobseeker's Benefit
• After your benefits run out and, assuming you won't qualify for Jobseeker's Allowance (which is means-tested), you can elect to sign on for credits. You typically do this once a year at your local Intreo (social welfare) office.
• If you are a woman with children, you can claim Homemaker's Credits for any period(s) when you were out of work and claiming child benefit, up to the 12th birthday of your youngest child. Homemaker's credits will only be added when you go to claim the pension, they will not add them on to your history beforehand.

Can you add reckonable contributions and reckonable credited contributions together when trying to reach the 2080?

The only column that matters is the last one - on the right. The title is 'Combined Reckonable Contributions and Credited Contributions for Pension'.

The total in that column and any future contributions you can accumulate up to the end of the calendar year before you reach 66 needs to come to 2,080. That will qualify you for the full state contributory pension.

I can't see a combined column. Last column on the right is called Reckonable Credited Contributions for Pension

If you're self-employed, that would be the way to go. When you sign on for credits, you have to declare that you are unemployed, available for work and actively seeking work.

Well, I asked for mine in January and till now haven't got it. Officers are working on it, there is a message on their site… Is it normal that they are so slow?

2080 weeks?

2. You have a certain number of paid PRSI contributions

The number of paid PRSI contributions you need for the State Pension (Contributory) depends on your retirement date.

If you reach pension age on or after 6 April 2012, you need to have 520 full-rate PRSI contributions (10 years’ contributions).

If you reached pension age between 6 April 2002 and 5 April 2012, you needed to have 260 full-rate contributions (5 years’ contributions).

If you reached pension age before 6 April 2002, you needed 156 qualifying full-rate paid contributions (3 years’ contributions).

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

Client Eligibility Services - Buncrana
Address:Department of Social Protection, McCarter's Road, Buncrana, Donegal, Co. Donegal, F93 CH79
Email:contributionstatement@welfare.ie

Just on this, so if I add:

"Reckonable Contributions for Pension"

and

"Reckonable Credited Contributions"

I get a figure that matches up with the first column "Total Pension Contributions".

Does that seem correct yes?

What's confusing me is the column "Paid Contributions", in which for example in 2017 it lists 62A class contributions, and 8J class contributions. Further down it mentions that J class contributions dont count towards the Pension....and I'm not sure why they're there...

Info online suggests J class contributions are paid to people who earn less than 38 euro per week, which wasn't the case for me in 2017. So I'm not sure what they relate to, but I guess that's a question for Revenue really

Nope, bizarrely it says 62. Revenue systems permanently baffle me sadly.