Thanks for that Barracuda. The threats to my deferred DBS are multifold and overriding to the hit I will take on a transfer.
Here's a brief list:
1. Fund is in deficit - made worse by funding minima changes a year or two ago. Technically it is borderline, having once been one of the best performing DBS schemes in the country (pre-2008).
2. It is due for an audit in September, which it may well fail = End of scheme for deferrees like me.
3. If it is not actually wound up it may simply have benefits reduced (unless extra funding is made by current contributors, which is unlikely).
4. The company - who make a large contribution to the scheme - are in financial difficulty.
5. The Irish State is in financial difficulty and has already identified Irish Pensions as suitable for confiscation. I doubt there's much sympathy for the like of me back in Ireland, so further confiscation would be like stealing candy from a baby in the Governments view. Low hanging fruit.
6. Eurozone breakup looms. If Ireland leaves the Euro the new currency will be devalued overnight. How much do you think? Forty percent sounds about right! Ergo my DBS income will be cut by 40% in real terms. Same Same.
7. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. It wasn't always thus - ten years ago I'd have shuddered at the idea of withdrawing from the scheme - but not any more.
I'm not interested in buying an annuity.
Where I now live (Far East) there is a long tradition of company EPF's (Employee Provident Funds) where you get the whole lump in your hands on retirement and then you do as you please with it. There are no guarantees of income (DBS schemes are rare as hens teeth). Most people out here prefer it that way, and given what I see happening in Ireland I think guarantees are no longer worth the paper they're written on anyway. I'd prefer an EPF like my local colleagues here.
I'd prefer the lump.
How to arrange it is my burning issue.
I do know its possible.
(PS If you are right and more people are looking for transfers now, I say fair play to them. The confiscation of retirement savings was a big miscalculation that will backfire on the government with worse consequences in the long run).