Understanding Pensions The Friendly Guide to Pensions

With people now enjoying a longer life expectancy than in the past,we need to plan for a retirement period of perhaps twenty years or more – that could be more than half as long as our total working careers. It is essential, therefore, that everyone should be encouraged to make adequate provision during their time at work to ensure financial protection through what may be a lengthy period in retirement.
Through the State social insurance (Social Welfare) system most employees and selfemployed people will build up entitlement to a basic pension. However, in very many cases there will be need for additional pension cover to maintain into retirement the standard of living they enjoyed while at work.
This additional cover is provided – for employees – through occupational pension schemes and, in more recent times, through Personal Retirement Savings Accounts (PRSAs).These schemes enable employees and their employers to set aside, in a taxefficient manner, a proportion of earnings in each working year to provide benefits in the form of retirement pensions. In addition, they provide financial protection for spouses and other dependants on a scheme member’s death.

One can downlad the full paper below - Reproduced with the kind permission of the Retirement Planning Council of Ireland and the Irish Association of Pension Funds - A Revised Edition of Understanding Pensions is currently in production

Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to View/Download/Print these files.  A free copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader can be downloaded from the Adobe website - www.adobe.com.

NOTE: It may take some time for the Adobe Reader to download.