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Pensions

Enhancing Benefits - AVCs and Purchase of Retirement Benefits

It may be possible to enhance your benefits under the Single Scheme via a PRSA AVC or, with effect from 1 October 2019, via the purchase of additional retirement benefits.

Purchase of Retirement Benefits

With effect from 1 October 2019, under the Purchase of Retirement Benefits, a scheme member can agree to buy additional pension only, additional lump sum only or a combination of additional pension and lump sum. The purchase agreement will operate on a 12 month basis and at that point either terminates or is recalculated for the following 12 months. To commence payment, members must have met eligibility criteria including.

  • The scheme member must have completed the vesting period (i.e. accrued over 2 years service within the Single Scheme).
  • The scheme member must have the potential to complete a period of 9 full time equivalent years as a member of the Single Scheme.
  • If the member is on a contract, the term of the contract must allow the member to have a potential of 9 full time equivalent years.

The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER) are responsible for the Single Scheme and have developed a spreadsheet to calculate the cost of purchasing the additional benefits. The spreadsheet can be found by clicking here. (If you are having difficulty opening the Excel file, right-click on it and select "Open link in new window". Then hit F5/Refresh.)

Once you have used the spreadsheet to establish the approximate cost and you wish to continue purchase additional benefits you should contact the Pensions Office and provide confirmation of any other pension benefits you currently have and the current value of each.

Further information regarding this scheme can also be found on the relevant circular which is available on the Single Scheme website.

PRSA AVC

Active members of the Single Scheme may also contribute to a Personal Retirement Savings Account (PRSA) Additional Voluntary Contribution (AVC) scheme. The AVC scheme is more flexible than the Purchase of Retirement Benefits in terms of adjusting the contribution amounts or stopping and re-starting your contributions.

Your AVC fund is then used to purchase additional benefits at retirement.

Our Single Scheme AVC PRSA is administered by an intermediary Rockcourt Financial Services who can be contacted on (01) 209 1955 or email liam@rockcourt.ie

Further details on the AVC PRSA can be found on the Rockcourt Explanatory Leaflet.