I am curious about the buying back of pension eligibility in UK. I worked there as a teacher for two years from 1974 to 1976 before returning to Ireland, where I taught in a primary school until I retired in 2012.
I did look into it in the early 2000s but was told I was eligible for nothing there. I appear to have mislaid or discarded details of same! As I am now in my 70s, I am wondering am I wasting my time in applying?
Ms M.L
You say you are in your 70s, and that might rule you out in any case. If you were born before April 5th, 1953, you are not eligible to purchase additional national insurance years by way of voluntary contributions.
You will be assessed instead under the old UK state pension rules that apply up to 2016. I’m really not familiar with the rules of that scheme, but the UK government website says that you could have qualified for some class of pensions with as little as one year of national insurance if you were born between 1950 and 1953. If you were born before 1950, that minimum could rise as high as 10 years.
While you have been able to buy back up to six years of national insurance coverage, if you had fewer than four years on your record, it would not have been enough to bring you over a 10-year minimum threshold. That may have been why you were told what you were back when you checked the last time in the early 200s.
However, the current voluntary national insurance buyback scheme is more generous, allowing you to buy back to 2006 if you meet the age criteria mentioned at the top. So it is certainly worth checking again.
As a teacher, your school years would have run from September to July, so you would have crossed into three tax years – 1974/75, 1975/76 and 1976/77 – as the UK tax year runs from April 6th to April 5th.
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If you are still aged 70 or 71 you might sneak in under the threshold, though I’m sceptical. You need three years (36 months) of paid or credited national insurance stamps. Still, many people when they check their national insurance record with the UK authorities find that they have more years than they had figured, so it is certainly worth checking.
You would need to buy additional years to bring your record up to a minimum of 10 years’ contributions to qualify for any pension, if permitted. And the price of buying those years might vary depending on whether you were in employment or not for the years you wish to acquire.
[ Appealing a decision on the cost of UK national insuranceOpens in new window ]
If you were being asked to pay £17.45 per week for some of those years – £907.40 (€1,090) per year – you might need to assess whether or not you will benefit from the UK pension.
If you are in any doubt, it is worth at least putting in a call-back claim form. You can find that here. Before sending it, you should take a screenshot of the form. The British authorities have accepted that anyone filling that form and returning it online by the April 5th deadline will be considered to be eligible for consideration under the scheme.
Over the coming days, we will talk about concerns over delays in hearing back on your application, and missing national insurance numbers, among other things.
Please send your queries to Dominic Coyle, Q&A, The Irish Times, 24-28 Tara Street Dublin 2, or by email to dominic.coyle@irishtimes.com with a contact phone number. This column is a reader service and is not intended to replace professional advice
