The civil service pension modellers are designed to give you an estimate of your projected pension benefits based on the salary and service details entered by you. They will estimate:
- pension benefits at retirement for a selected retirement age or a selected date
- spouse and children’s benefits
- death in service benefits
- preserved benefits if you resign before your minimum retirement age
- actuarially reduced benefits if you retire before your minimum retirement age
The calculators will not take into account salary increases between now and retirement.
In order to give you your estimates, the modellers require certain information about you and your employment. The required information is explained below.
Each pension modeller also allows you to receive an estimate for the purchase of notional service. The civil service scheme for the purchase of notional service allows civil servants, subject to certain eligibility criteria, to purchase additional reckonable service at full actuarial cost to themselves.
Service to date
You should enter your periods of reckonable civil service by selecting the relevant calendar dates. Reckonable service generally includes all paid service as a scheme member.
You should not enter any potential future service as this will automatically be calculated by the modeller in the next step. You should also exclude any periods of unpaid absences, such as career breaks or unpaid leave.
Work pattern
For each period of service entered on the calendar, you must select a work pattern. If you worked full-time for a period of service, the relevant work pattern is 100%. If you worked less than full-time for any period of service, the work pattern you select should reflect the % pro-rata to the full-time equivalent. For example, if you work half of the full-time hours for your job, the relevant work pattern is 50%.
Date of Birth
You must enter your date of birth. This is required to determine your minimum and maximum retirement ages.
Transferred service
You may enter any service which has been transferred through the Public Sector Transfer Network (PSTN). Only service which has been confirmed as reckonable and has been formally transferred into the civil service will reckon towards your civil service pension benefits.
You should note that notional service such as service purchased by you, or professional added years are not included. Such notional service cannot be confirmed until you are actually retiring. If you include notional service under transferred service, or under your service to date, your estimated pension benefits may not reflect your actual entitlements.
Limit on pension accrual (Benefit Cap)
Section 52(6) of the Public Service Pensions (Single Scheme and other Provisions) Act 2012 limits the amount of pensionable service an individual may accrue across all pre-existing public service pension schemes (non-Single Scheme terms) to a maximum of 40 years or equivalent.
If you have accrued pension benefits under another pre-existing public service pension scheme, this may impact your total civil service pension benefits.
Annual salary
Please enter your full-time annual salary. If you workshare or work part time, please enter your full-time equivalent salary. Full-time weekly or fortnightly salary multiplied by 52.18 or 26.09 respectively equates to annual salary.
Pensionable allowances may be factored into your final pensionable remuneration at retirement, however, this cannot be confirmed until you are actually retiring. Click here for information on pensionable allowances.
You may wish to project some 'what if?' scenarios by entering a salary value which differs from your current salary. For example you may wish to see the effect on your projected pension benefits that a higher point on your pay scale or a promotion to a higher grade would have.
Benefit statements
Select the benefit statement you want to display. There are four types of statements available:
Retirement benefit statement
Estimate your projected pension benefits on retirement at a particular age or date.
Preserved benefit statement
Estimate your projected pension benefits on reaching your minimum pension age, if you were to resign before your minimum pension age.
Actuarially reduced retirement benefit statement
Estimate your projected actuarially reduced pension benefits on retirement at a particular age or date, in any of the ten years before your minimum pension age, should you choose not to preserve your pension.
Death in Service benefit statement
Estimate the projected pension benefits your legal personal representative would receive if you were to die in service.
Future work pattern
If you currently workshare or work part time, or intend to do so in future, you should choose the % work pattern that you work or intend to work. This should be the % pro-rata to the full-time equivalent (100%).
This is relevant to estimate your potential service to the selected retirement age or date.
You may wish to project some 'what if?' scenarios by entering a work pattern that reflects anticipated periods of unpaid leave, for example a career break, shorter working year, etc. If you wish to use the future work pattern this way you should enter the proportion of time overall which you intend to work as a percentage of full years from now to your projected retirement date.
Retirement ages
Established Civil Servants recruited before 1 April 2004:
You may retire between the ages of 60 and 70 in this scheme.
Established Civil Servants recruited on or after 1 April 2004:
You may retire from age 65 in this scheme.
Non-Established State Employees recruited before 1 April 2004:
You may retire between the ages of 65 and 70 in this scheme.
Non-Established State Employees recruited on or after 1 April 2004:
You may retire from age 65 in this scheme.
Prison Officers recruited before 1 April 2004:
You may retire between the ages of 55 and 60 in this scheme, or from age 50 if you have accrued 30 years’ reckonable service in this scheme.
Prison Officers recruited on or after 1 April 2004:
You may retire between the ages of 55 and 60 in this scheme.
Actuarial retirement age:
Actuarial retirement may be available from 10 years prior to your minimum pension age; for example, from age 50 in the case of persons with a minimum pension age of 60 and from age 55 in the case of persons with a minimum pension age of 65.
Retained benefits
Retained benefits will impact the amount of service an individual is permitted to purchase under the purchase of notional service scheme.
The expression 'retained benefits' generally means:
a) benefits from a previous occupational pension scheme, which includes pensions, commutation payments, lump sums and gratuities; and
b) benefits under any other personal or private pension plan.
Where the retained benefits under another occupational pension scheme are identical to the benefits which would be payable under the civil service pension schemes, for an equivalent period of service, then their value is the actual number of years and days of service in that other scheme.
Where the retained benefits are not identical to the benefits which would be payable under the civil service pension schemes for an equivalent period of service, or the retained benefits are in a personal or private pension plan, a benefit statement must be obtained from the trustees of the other pension scheme or plan and submitted, through the relevant pension administrator, to the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform, for a valuation in order to determine the impact of those benefits on the individual's purchase of service request.
Lump sum purchase
This is a once-off payment towards the cost of purchased service. If you retire early, this may impact the amount of service you have purchased.
Periodic deductions
If you purchase notional service by way of periodic deductions, these deductions are made from salary and must continue to the selected retirement age.
If periodic purchase deductions cease prior to the selected retirement age, for example, if you cancel the purchase agreement or retire/resign early, this will impact the amount of service you have purchased.
If you avail of a period of unpaid leave and periodic purchase deductions are not paid for that period, the amount of service this will impact the amount of service you have purchased.
