Pension

Published 24 Apr 2015Updated 11 Aug 2025

by Redha Abbood

Published 24 Apr 2015Updated 11 Aug 2025

by Redha Abbood

Babylon Radio

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If you have come from a country with which Ireland has a Bilateral Social Security Agreement, your pension rights from the other country are protected when you move to Ireland. You may be able to combine your insurance records from Ireland and the appropriate country in order to qualify for a pension. It is possible to have a pension from Ireland and one or all of the other countries.

State Pension Rates 2008 (Contributory)

Personal rate, aged 66 – 80 €223.30Qualified adult aged 66 and over €200A qualified adult is someone you are living with as husband and wife. However, any income your adult dependant has from employment, self-employment, savings, investments and capital (for example, any property except your own home) will be taken into account. Your income is not taken into account, only your spouse’s or partner’s income is taken into account, in the assessment for a Qualified Adult Allowance. If you have joint savings or investments etc., only half is taken into account as belonging to your spouse/partner.

Contributory Pension (State)

If you reach pension age on or after April 6 2012, you will need to have 520 paid PRSI contributions (10 years ). Not more than half of the 520 contributions may be voluntary contributions. However, if you were a voluntary contributor on or before April 6 1997 and you have an average of 10 contributions per year, you may meet the requirement if you have a total of 520 contributions, but only 156 need to be compulsory paid contributions.You must have a yearly average of at least 10 appropriate contributions paid or credited from the year you first entered insurance or from 1953, whichever is later. An average of 10 entitles you to a minimum pension; you need an average of 48 to get the full pension.Occupational Pensions are not provided by all employers in Ireland. But Personal Retirement Savings Accounts (PRSAs) were introduced in Ireland in 2002. A Personal Retirement Savings Account is long-term personal retirement account designed to enable you to save for retirement in a flexible manner.A PRSA is a contract between you and a PRSA provider in the form of an investment account. PRSAs allow you to change employment and continue to use the same PRSA. You can also switch from one PRSA to another at any time, free of charge.Tax relief based on your age will be given by the Government for the contributions you pay into your PRSA. Employers that do not provide an occupational pension scheme for their employees are obliged to provide access to at least one Standard PRSA . Employers are required to have provided access to a PRSA to employees who are not entitled to join a pension scheme within 6 months of existing service.