I was born in '42 and will be 66 this year.
My first 20 years were lived in Ireland. The last two of these years were spent at UCD and for six months of them I worked in a Dublin based insurance company, presumably paying pension contributions.
Later I returned to Ireland aged 31 (in '73) to study medicine. I qualified in '79.
A large part of my working life was spent in the UK and since last year when I was 65 I have been receiving a UK State Pension. This is based on 24 years worth of NI contributions, 11 years of which were voluntary contributions paid just before my 65th birthday. I receive 60.90 GBP per week.
During '64 - '65 I worked for the New York Herald Tribune (now the IHT) in Paris.
Whether the pay I received involved any insurance contributions, I don't know.
I have also worked as a doctor in Australia, in all for 9 months.
I spent the summer of '74, while I was a student at UCC, working in a hotel in San Francisco.
I '83 I joined Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and was posted to a refugee camp in Thailand. In '84 the camp closed and I remained on in Thailand and continued working with the hilltribe group who were the occupants of the camp I'd been in. (The camp was for hilltribe refugees from Laos.) This was not medical work. I marketed handicrafts made by the hilltribe. (I considered the main problem for this group was economic rather than medical.) My income came from this activity.
In '93 and again in '98 I had heart attacks which slowed me up. The introduction of new drugs, mainly the statins, have improved my cardiac condition.
The voluntary UK NI contirbution took up most of my savings and the UK pension, after paying for medication, leaves very little for living expenses. Recently I have been buying generic medication from India although there are doubts about its reliability.
I own a flat in Thailand.
Are any options open to me to receive an Irish pension?
Thanks.