Qualifying service - transferred PRSA into occupational pension

Persius

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I'm leaving my current job after less than two years service. My current employer provides an occupational pension. When I joined this job, I transferred the PRSA from my previous employer into my occupational pension with my current employer. It was a standard PRSA, receiving regular monthly payments from my employer (employee and employer contributions).

From reading previous threads and other info on the Internet, it appears that transferring a previous pension into the current pension can increase the years of qualifying service. But it's not clear to me whether the same applies if transferring a PRSA into an occupational pension.

Does anyone know how transfer of a PRSA to an occupational pension is treated for calculating qualifying service?
 
its service in schemes only?

"qualifying service", in relation to a member of a scheme, means the aggregate of every period of reckonable service, whether or not continuous in each case, under -
  1. (a) the scheme,
  2. (b) every other scheme relating to the same employment,
  3. (c) every other scheme relating to any other employment in respect of which rights to long service benefit have been granted under the scheme in substitution for accrued rights under such other scheme:
 
Is your employer's occupational scheme a defined benefit or a defined contribution scheme?

When you transferred your PRSA in, you should have got full details of the benefits/value you transferred in

From Pension Board website

Qualifying service​

A term defined in the Pensions Act, 1990, as amended, as the service which a pension scheme member must complete before becoming entitled to a preserved benefit on leaving service. Currently, it is two years' service including any period in a previous scheme from which a transfer value was received.
 
Sorry for the delay in replying. Current scheme (well, now previous scheme, as I've just left) is a DC occupational scheme. I have about 1.5 years contributions.
As mentioned, employer before that only offered a PRSA. I took out the PRSA that they offered, and they made monthly deductions from my salary into that PRSA. Again about 1.5 years contributions. I transferred these contributions into the DC occupational scheme when I changed job 1.5 years ago. Now waiting for the letter from the trustees as to what I get and can do with my contributions now that I've left.
 
To answer my own question, transferring my previous PRSA into my most recent previous company's DC pension scheme did extend my qualifying service from 15 months to beyond 2 years.

I received the Leaving Service Benefits Options letter from the pension administrators. There was no option to take my own contributions as cash (less 20%) tax, as would be the case if I had less than 2 years service. And I am entitled to keep my employer's contributions in the scheme as a deferred benefit, an option only available with more than 2 years service.
 
Did the pension administrators not answer that question in their letter?
 
I hadn't got the letter when I posted the question. I only received the letter today. They don't explicitly mention how they calculate my qualifying years of service. They just add up the current value of my contributions, the employer's contributions and the "transfer values received" (i.e. my previous PRSA) to arrive at the total current value. They tell me I can keep it in their scheme, transfer it to my new employer's scheme or use it to buy a retirement bond. Since I only had 1.5 years with that company, they obviously added my 1.5 years from the previous PRSA to bring me over the 2 year threshhold, allowing me to keep the employer's contributions as well.
 
Sorry - in your post yesterday at 10:19 you posted "I received the Leaving Service benefits Options letter ..." so I presumed you had it
 
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