Is there a fee-based advisor dealing with public sector pensions?

Brendan Burgess

Brendan Burgess

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A friend of mine has asked me to advise a neighbour of hers but I know nothing about public sector pensions.

I would like to refer her to a fee-based advisor. I don't want someone who will just sell her AVCs.

A quick look on askboutmoney found these guys https://www.expertadvice.ie/ but a quick look at their website and the basis of their fees is not clear to me, so I assume that they are commission based.

Google gives me these, but again no mention of fees https://ipf.ie/civil-service/

Brendan
 
Would public service unions/HR Departments have lists of advisors, paid and free, just as a starting point?
 
PSRA Brendan, Public Sector Retirement Advisers based in Maynooth I think. They helped my wife (a primary teacher) when she was retiring. I sat on the meeting and was seriously impressed with their knowledge of the intracacies of the public sector
 
We used expertadvice.ie and we got a one hour consultation that was very worthwhile. Both my wife and I are Public Sector workers and got a lot of insight and value from the consultation. This was in May 2025 and it was on-line.

We felt that the advisor had a good knowledge of the public sector system and the interrelation with Class A and D PRSI.

The advisor Ciaran was great.

At the time I think the cost was about 200 + Vat which we felt it was reasonable. We submitted some info in advance and the consultation was very specific to our needs.

As well as the advice we set out to get, we got some other great advice on other financial issues.
 
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We were not charged any additional fees, from this it looks like we had a one hour consultation plus Vat, and we just got some financial advice. It was as described, there was no sales pressure.

We had no follow up work, and no pressure to engage further. Our circumstances have changed, and I will organise another consultation in the coming weeks.

We found it was great value and really gave us a lot of good advice, and the advice extended beyond the inital scope and there was no charge. The consultation was an hour, and thats all we paid for. The session was targeted at my wifes situation, but I had some questions about my situation and these were dealt with competently.
 
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Everything you need to know about public sector pensions is here on askaboutmoney. All the knowledge in here has likely been gobbled up by every AI so a conversation with one of them would at least get you from zero knowledge to 80%. Then a subsequent paid for in-person meeting with an advisor could be more productive.

The single pension scheme thread on here is a fantastic resource. It's useful even if you are in an earlier ps pension scheme because of how well it explains the value of and how to make AVCs to supplement your ps pension.
 
davidkelleher.ie

Home Page - David Kelleher Financial Services - Life Assurance - Pensions - Savings - Investments - Cork % %

Impartial financial advice for all your Financial planning needs,Teachers Financial Services, Public and Private Sector.
davidkelleher.ie davidkelleher.ie
These guys are great - Carmel who works there is so patient and brilliant for teachers pensions. I'm sure they do other public servants as well. Very reasonable and often run deals on Facebook group 'Teachers Financial Advice'. They are passionate about salary protection as know the value when things go wrong. Very honest and didn't "sell" me anything when I did a financial review, - unlike cornmarket who I found pushy on AVCs. A phone call with Carmel or David and you can find out fast if they can help or not. They are based in Cork somewhere.
 
I had a session with PRSA about 10 yrs ago. I found it useful but you would need to do a lot of work beforehand and have a list of questions ready.
I was hoping for something more prescriptive to suit my needs - but got a bunch of options.
On the downside - I got a page of scribbled notes which were not easy to follow. Maybe now they offer a nicer printout of their figures and key points discussed in the session.
 
sidzer said:
I had a session with PRSA about 10 yrs ago
Click to expand...
You mean PSRA/Expert Advice?

Is there a fee-based advisor dealing with public sector pensions?

A friend of mine has asked me to advise a neighbour of hers but I know nothing about public sector pensions. I would like to refer her to a fee-based advisor. I don't want someone who will just sell her AVCs. A quick look on askboutmoney found these guys https://www.expertadvice.ie/ but...
www.askaboutmoney.com

Is there a fee-based advisor dealing with public sector pensions?

A friend of mine has asked me to advise a neighbour of hers but I know nothing about public sector pensions. I would like to refer her to a fee-based advisor. I don't want someone who will just sell her AVCs. A quick look on askboutmoney found these guys https://www.expertadvice.ie/ but...
www.askaboutmoney.com
 
I also had a consultation with PRSA a number of years ago. They are pretty inexpensive so I wasn’t expecting a huge amount of detail, but I wanted a sounding Board in relation to AVC’s and/or buying years. They were very helpful with that, and they were the first people to tell me about the supplementary pension which changed my calculus around retirement radically.
 
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