Key Post UK State Pension - Make voluntary contributions to qualify for UK pension on top of Irish pension

Interesting comment about the application process for a state pension. Question I have about this is how does one separately apply for the Irish State Pension and the UK state pension to ensure that the contributions aren't merged into one single pension as the application form requires both the Irish PRSI number and the UK NI number? Could anyone who has been through this care to advise?
 
I will be going through the process for my Irish state pension shortly and will update how I get on. To my knowledge, both pensions are separate, but both require your work history so I see no problem providing that. If it is not in your interest to merge contributions for a bigger Irish pension, then they won't.
 
My understanding is they are not merged. There is a formula they use to decide how much you get. It is not the same amount as if all the contributions were irish.
 
Hi, thanks for that. I would be interested to hear how you get on. I have looked at the application form for the Irish State pension. It asks to fill in details for all of your working life. In my case thats the UK and latterly Ireland. I can not see anywhere on the document where you can choose to keep your pension contributions seperate or to merge them.
 
partnership said:
My understanding is they are not merged. There is a formula they use to decide how much you get. It is not the same amount as if all the contributions were irish.
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Thanks for the reply. It might be buyers remorse at this stage (having just paid back 18 years) I was explaining it to a friend recently and he didn't believe that it was possible to get two state pensions and that I had wasted my money, especially if I had paid back NIC years that overlapped with PRSI years. So I went looking for a document which explains why this is possible and I couldn't find one. I would have thought citizens information.ie might have a worked example or something. The application for the state pension wasn't exactly clear on the seperation of pensions between Ireland and UK. Can anyone point to a document which explains all this?
 
https://www.citizensinformation.ie/...t/social-insurance-contributions-from-abroad/
This gives the formula. Yes you can get both pensions if you read through threads on here there are people who bought back ni getting the pension now.
 
I believe that PRSI and NICs (UK) can be added together to help one “qualify” for an Irish COAP ie to reach the minimum 520 PRSI contributions …..below which one gets nothing from Ireland.

As per posts above and assuming one qualifies for the COAP there is then a formula (which doesn’t make a lot of sense to me) which considers your NICs record …which can result in a lower pension payment amount than if you only had PRSI contributions. If it is lower my expectation or hope or understanding is that such calculation is ignored and any alternative and higher benefit payment calculation amount is paid instead.

I’ll qualify this by saying that I’ve been trying to gain clarity on this for a while and I’m still not confident that I have.
 
I received the below letter today. I only posted the form to them 8 weeks ago so this seems very fast from what I read here. I can see there are some of you are very well versed on this issue on here, so can someone who has a clear understanding of this, tell me what does this mean?
 
Can I ask was this successful for you to pay via Revolut??

Having spend an age reading on here I rang the HMRC office and the nice lady on there was absolutely adamant that I could not use Revolut to pay them? As a means of establishing an exact Sterling amount I am not sure of another way.
 
Hi I sent it through my BOI APP and it went through ok and i was able to set the exact amount in sterling that needed to be sent, But BOI wont let you send more that a €1000 to a new payee on the first go, so I would send £179.40 first and then a day or two later the rest, It will be at least 4 Months before it shows up on your HMRC account make sure you follow the info at (gov.uk/pay-class-2-national-insurance) and read it a few times before sending it. I have no info on any other banking system.
The first change you will see is the year 2023-2024 disappear off that list (the £179.40) in a few months and then the rest a few weeks later.
 
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Thank you. I think BOI have the 1k limit on the first day of set up rather than first payment no? After 48hrs I am guessing you could have made full single payment. Did they charge you for this as when I set this up just now, it says some foreign banks will deduct fees from amount sent, so did you add a buffer amount to cover such fees from Barclays?

Revolut would be more cost effective and it seems people on here are doing it, but HMRC rep was definite I couldn't us them..
 
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Yes - I rang today (5 weeks after the Revolut transfer) and the money has arrived successfully. The lady I spoke to said it can take up to 17 weeks to allocate class 2 payments.
 
I'm curious about how you did this as in transfer Sterling from BOI APP. Where did you specify your National Insurance Number. My recollection was that if you transferred in Euro there was a 'Reference' field available, but when you choose Sterling, the 'Reference' field disappears and instead you are presented with I think 'Message to payee'. For that reason I ended up sending a Euro transfer (with a little bit more to take account of the exchange rate).
 
Tobyboy said:
As a means of establishing an exact Sterling amount I am not sure of another way.
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Another way to do it is using an in branch bank transfer. I did it using AIB, the amount is sent in sterling, based on that day's exchange rate.
 
I did it in my boi app and put ref number in message field. Put in Sterling amount.
 
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