The more flexible contributory state pension. Is it a good deal ?

Dr Strangelove said:
The attitude is ridiculous given how imprecise the guidelines are often written.

I had a technical query regarding PRSI rules years ago that DSP would not answer.

The only way to get an answer was to get a TD to ask a parliamentary question.
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It is not only SW who behaves like that. I had some questions for the medical card people. No answer either. The usual " Send us in your application and we make a decision". Those agencies treat grown ups like kids.
 
Dr Strangelove said:
The only way to get an answer was to get a TD to ask a parliamentary question.
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It isn't the only way - it's the lazy way. The correct way is to avail of the services of the Ombudsman's Office.

Forumuser said:
It is not only SW who behaves like that. I had some questions for the medical card people. No answer either. The usual " Send us in your application and we make a decision". Those agencies treat grown ups like kids.
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No. They prefer to deal with some questions in writing, so there's a paper trail and Johnny Flathead can't call Liveline (or run to his local TD) to complain that the HSE chap on the phone promised him a medical card but his application was subsequently turned down!
 
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S class said:
Is there an Ombudsman who deals with technical questions about Prsi rules ?
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No. But there is an Ombudsman who is empowered to direct the relevant State Body to answer such technical queries in a situation where it has failed to do so.
 
Marsupial said:
It isn't the only way - it's the lazy way. The correct way is to avail of the services of the Ombudsman's Office
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My experience (n=1, a different topic) was that the Ombudsman was instinctively on the side of the government department, slow, and interested in procedural rather than substantive issues.

Parliamentary questions are taken very seriously by government departments.
 
They are.

PQs must be answered in substance and on time. Ministers are highly reluctant (and rightly so) to mislead the Dáil.

In contrast written queries from members of the public are routinely not replied to or given obfuscatory responses.
 
Long article in the Irish Times today very sceptical of the merits of delaying state pension uptake.

Who should defer?​

O’Dwyer agrees that he expects take-up will be low, at least initially. He says there are just two situations where it can make sense to defer. The first is where someone may need additional PRSI credits to either increase the level of State pension they qualify for, to or qualify for one at all.
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For “practically everyone else”, it makes sense to draw their pension down at 66.

“Other than those two circumstances, we’re not seeing any financial logic in deferring the State pension,” he says, although he acknowledges that offering people more choice, when it comes to their State pension, is a good thing.
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Marsupial said:
No. They prefer to deal with some questions in writing, so there's a paper trail and Johnny Flathead can't call Liveline (or run to his local TD) to complain that the HSE chap on the phone promised him a medical card but his application was subsequently turned down!
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Bullshit!
Letters are either not answered or or you get a reply that they are currently not able to answer your questions.
Same with emails.
 
Forumuser said:
Bullshit!
Letters are either not answered or or you get a reply that they are currently not able to answer your questions.
Same with emails.
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I assume that your initial, one word sentence refers to your comment. In which case I completely agree.

(For the record, in the past three months my spouse has received six letters and three email replies from DSP relating to a number of PRSI-Pension related queries that she sent them. I'll repeat that for the hard of hearing: in the past 3 months my spouse has received SIX letters and THREE email replies from the Department of Social Protection.)
 
@Marsupial

In my experience DSP are the best of a bad lot when it comes to correspondence:)

On several occasions, I have had to resort to FOI requests and Parliamentary questions to get basic answers from various arms of the state, including DSP.
 
Marsupial said:
I assume that your initial, one word sentence refers to your comment. In which case I completely agree.

(For the record, in the past three months my spouse has received six letters and three email replies from DSP relating to a number of PRSI-Pension related queries that she sent them. I'll repeat that for the hard of hearing: in the past 3 months my spouse has received SIX letters and THREE email replies from the Department of Social Protection.)
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That is very nice of the DSP. I was never that lucky.
 
My mother applied for a DSP Allowance recently. She received two letters in response. The first stated "I have decided that you are due this allowance from xx/12/2023" and that it will be payable weekly. The second stated "I have decided that you are due this allowance from xx/01/2024" and that it will be payable in two lump-sums. Both letters dated the same date and both letters signed off by the same person.

My experience of DSP over the years supporting various people is that you can be very very lucky and get staff who have an in-depth knowledge of the schemes they administer, who know their systems inside out and who use their initiative and positive attitude to deliver promptly for their clients. And you can be unlucky and get one of the much larger number of jobsworths who appear to spend most of their time shifting chips of discontentment from one shoulder to the other.
 
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