{"id":283420,"date":"2026-02-10T06:52:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T06:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/283420\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T06:52:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T06:52:08","slug":"thousands-of-irish-women-who-lived-in-uk-may-be-in-line-for-pension-windfall-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/283420\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands of Irish women who lived in UK may be in line for pension windfall \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thousands of Irish women who lived in the UK<\/a> may be entitled to a refund after being underpaid by British pension<\/a> authorities. <\/p>\n

More than 230,000 women are understood to have been paid less than they were entitled to in UK state pension. A far smaller number of men is also affected. The average amount due to people affected is around \u00a37,000 (\u20ac8,045), according to British authorities.<\/p>\n

It is not known how many Irish women are among the group but, on the basis of numbers living in Ireland who are entitled to UK pensions on the basis of previous residency in Northern Ireland<\/a> or Britain, advisers in the Republic expect that the number could be significant.<\/p>\n

XtraPension, a Galway-based adviser that specialises in UK state pension applications, advises any woman in receipt of a British pension to check with the UK department of work and pensions to see if they are affected.<\/p>\n

Most of the people affected will have reached retirement age before April 2016 when the British authorities moved to a new state pension system with different entitlements.<\/p>\n

Those affected include people who took time out of the workplace to look after children or older people with a disability. Women who are married, widowed or divorced may also be affected depending on their circumstances. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Deadline looms for those who worked in UK to claim extra pension yearsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Married women were entitled to a pension uplift when their husbands turned 65, regardless of whether their own national insurance record would secure them only a lower pension. However, in the case of hundreds of thousands of women, that did not happen.<\/p>\n

Anyone in that position being paid less than 60 per cent of the full state pension rate is among those entitled to a refund. With the basic (old) state pension rate currently at \u00a3176.45, these women should be receiving a weekly UK pension of \u00a3105.87 (\u20ac121.70).<\/p>\n

Women who divorced their husbands after reaching state pension age can qualify for the same pension their husbands received, which could be up to the \u00a3176.45 figure.<\/p>\n

The reason it affects only people who divorced after hitting pension age is that the pension should have been automatically assessed on that basis if they got divorced earlier in life.<\/p>\n

Widows whose husband hit state pension age before April 6th, 2016, but have died since, or those whose husbands died before hitting pension age, are also in line for a payout.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Can I appeal if UK tax officials want me to pay more than I think I should to buy back British pension rightsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Anyone who believes they may be affected should contact the British department of work and pensions international pension centre on +44 (0) 191 218 7777, or by post to: The Pension Service 11, Mail Handling Site A, Wolverhampton, WV98 1AF, England.<\/p>\n

They will need to have their own national insurance number to hand as well as details of what they are receiving in UK state pension at the moment. They will also need their husband\u2019s name, date of birth and, if applicable, date of death as well as their national insurance number. If national insurance details are missing or forgotten, the department should be able to assist.<\/p>\n

While some people, such as people over the age of 80 whose pension is below a certain threshold, will automatically receive any top up to which they are entitled, others will have to apply for any refund they may be due.<\/p>\n

As of now, those affected can only have the enhanced pension backdated for 12 months. A group of women is looking to appeal that rule currently.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thousands of Irish women who lived in the UK may be entitled to a refund after being underpaid…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283421,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[114,268,85,46,171,2955,266,267,443,1264],"class_list":{"0":"post-283420","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-northern-ireland","13":"tag-pension","14":"tag-personal-finance","15":"tag-personalfinance","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-work"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}