If I am reading your post correctly, you say that your Occupational Pension might be €31k and you expect a combined State SW Pension of c€28k. This gives a combined income of c€60k, plus whatever pension income your wife has. So this may well put you into the higher tax rate (depending on the split of income). I was curious as to whether you thought the State SW Pension was not liable for tax (sorry, but it is potentially liable for Income Tax).
so investing into an AVC to augment your Retirement Lump Sum to the Revenue max makes sense. But it is arguable whether it is tax effective to invest AVCs to provide an additional pension income, particularly if that additional income will be taxed at 40% + USC.
In terms of the SFT, your Occupational Benefits will be well below the €2m limit (typically the Revenue multiplier varies between 20:1 and 30:1 depending on your retirement age).