Planning to 95: Life Expectancy, the Irish ARF and the Real Retirement Lever
Informed Decisions: Ireland's Independent Retirement Planning Podcast
Release Date: 08/24/2026
Budget 2027 Ireland: The €50,000 Tax-Free Investment Account
Informed Decisions: Ireland's Independent Retirement Planning Podcast
Budget 2027 in Ireland came with the usual noise about tax bands and credits. If you are within 5 to 10 years of retiring, or already retired, those are rarely the lines that matter. In this Budget special, Paddy Delaney goes through what actually changed for Irish pensions, investments and retirement income. The new Investment Account in Ireland: €12,000 a year, the first €50,000 tax-free, 1% a year above that, from 1 July 2027 Exit tax down from 38% to 35%, capital gains tax down to 31%, and why deemed disposal is still with us What the Budget did and did not touch on pensions,...
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Before You Retire in Ireland: 5 Decisions You Can't Undo
Informed Decisions: Ireland's Independent Retirement Planning Podcast
It's good to know which decisions can never be undone, before you retire in Ireland. Most of a pre-retirement checklist can be changed next year. Four or five items cannot. In this episode Paddy Delaney, independent retirement and investment planner, takes them door by door: the €200,000 lifetime limit on tax-free lump sums, the annuity decision, the tax year you crystallise near the Standard Fund Threshold, the pension tax relief that stops with your last payslip, and the order you do it all in. This episode is for anyone a year or two from retirement who wants to know which doors close for...
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Trust in Financial Advice: Why Ireland Scores 49 Out of 100
Informed Decisions: Ireland's Independent Retirement Planning Podcast
Trust in financial services in Ireland sits at 49%, against a global average of 63%. Paddy Delaney goes through the 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer research on financial services, where Ireland ranks, and what sits behind the number. Edelman surveyed almost 34,000 people across 28 countries and publishes a separate report on financial services. Ireland comes in 23rd of 28, inside the distrust band, below the developed-economy average of 53% and well below the global figure. In this episode, Paddy goes through the following: Where Ireland ranks for trust in financial services, and which countries...
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Prize Bonds Ireland: What the New 1.5% Rate Actually Pays You
Informed Decisions: Ireland's Independent Retirement Planning Podcast
The Prize Bond prize fund rate rose from 1.00% to 1.50% this month, the first State Savings increase in about three years. Almost every write-up has described that 1.5% as a return. It is not one. It is the size of the prize pool spread across the whole €4.4 billion in issue, and what an individual holder receives is decided by a draw. In this Episode, Paddy works through the NTMA's own published figures and puts a realistic number on what Prize Bonds are actually worth to a normal holding, then lines them up against what the same State will pay for certainty. What you'll learn: Why the...
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Inheritance Tax in Ireland: Gift Now or Leave It? - with Mairéad Hennessy from Taxkey.ie
Informed Decisions: Ireland's Independent Retirement Planning Podcast
Inheritance tax in Ireland is charged at 33% on anything above €400,000 passing from a parent to a child. The question most families never properly work through is whether to move assets during their lifetime or leave them until the end. And that decision changes the bill, the timing, and who ends up paying it. Paddy is joined by Mairéad Hennessy of Taxkey, a firm of independent tax consultants, for a practical conversation about passing wealth on in Ireland. What you'll learn in this episode: • Why the tax question is the wrong place to start, and what to work out first • How the...
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Should You Retire at a Market All-Time High? Sequence Risk & the Irish ARF
Informed Decisions: Ireland's Independent Retirement Planning Podcast
Should you retire with the market at an all-time high? In Ireland, the record level feels dangerous, but it is not the risk that decides your outcome. In this episode, Paddy asks whether retiring at an all-time high is really the risk Irish savers fear, or whether the thing that decides your outcome is something else entirely. What you'll learn: • Why all-time highs are common, not a warning: global equities sit at or near record highs on roughly a third of trading days • What Japan's lost decades really warn against: concentration in one market, not equities themselves • A...
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Planning to 95: Life Expectancy, the Irish ARF and the Real Retirement Lever
Informed Decisions: Ireland's Independent Retirement Planning Podcast
Your Irish pension plan probably runs to age 95, but you'll likely live to around 83, and the gap changes your pot far less than you'd expect. In this episode, Paddy digs into the retirement life expactancy in Ireland. He checks on the one age assumption buried in almost every Irish retirement plan, where the default of 95 comes from and what the most recent CSO life tables actually say about how long a 65-year-old really lives. It's for you if you're approaching or already in retirement with a meaningful pension or ARF, and you've never been asked (or never questioned) the age your own plan...
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72% - One Country: Is Your Irish Pension Actually Diversified?
Informed Decisions: Ireland's Independent Retirement Planning Podcast
If you hold an Irish pension or an ARF invested in a global equity index fund, you have almost certainly been told you are diversified: Thousands of companies, dozens of countries, one fund, job done. And it is true: your global index fund really does hold well over a thousand companies across more than twenty developed markets. But there is a second truth sitting right beside it. As at the end of June 2026, roughly 72.45% of that same "global" fund is allocated to a single country: The United States. Same fund, same name, same low-cost passive approach and yet quietly a very different animal...
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Should You Take Your Pension Lump Sum at 60? A Worked Irish Case Study
Informed Decisions: Ireland's Independent Retirement Planning Podcast
Turning 60 with a significant pension pot and nothing forcing your hand? This episode is a worked case study on the pension lump sum decision at 60 in Ireland: Take the tax-free lump sum now, or leave the fund invested and revisit it at 65. Paddy goes through a study-case: Larry is 60, a senior private-sector executive, with €1.4 million in a defined contribution scheme. He doesn't exist. The numbers do. What you'll learn in this Episode: How the retirement lump sum is actually taxed in Ireland: the first €200,000 tax-free as a lifetime limit across all schemes, the 20% band to...
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Private Credit in Ireland: Can You Actually Get Your Money Out?
Informed Decisions: Ireland's Independent Retirement Planning Podcast
There is a pitch doing the rounds in Irish advice circles at the moment: private markets have finally been democratised, and private credit and private equity are now open to anyone with a decent pension pot. But is it really like that? In this episode, Paddy looks at what is actually being sold, and at the one feature that matters more than anything else in the brochure, because liquidity here is offered, not guaranteed. Have a listen, if you’d like to get an idea of what these ‘zombie funds’ in the private markets sector are all about, what your ARF has to do with them, and what...
info_outlineYour Irish pension plan probably runs to age 95, but you'll likely live to around 83, and the gap changes your pot far less than you'd expect.
In this episode, Paddy digs into the retirement life expactancy in Ireland. He checks on the one age assumption buried in almost every Irish retirement plan, where the default of 95 comes from and what the most recent CSO life tables actually say about how long a 65-year-old really lives.
It's for you if you're approaching or already in retirement with a meaningful pension or ARF, and you've never been asked (or never questioned) the age your own plan is built to.
Using a fictional €1.2m ARF, this piece shows how Revenue's imputed distribution means the closing pot is almost identical whether you plan to 83 or 95 (around €1.25m versus €1.21m). The end age was never really the lever.
What is covered in this Episode:
- Where the default planning age of 95 comes from and the US research (Barron's, TIAA, Stanford) behind “oversaving and underliving”
- What the most recent Irish CSO life tables really say and why they're a floor, not a forecast
- How Revenue's imputed distribution (4%, 5%, 6%) shapes drawdown from an ARF
- Why a €1.2m ARF lands at almost the same value at 83 or 95 and what that means for your estate
- The real lever: what you do with the income you're forced to draw, including a scenario that leaves roughly €283,000 less to Revenue
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DISCLAIMER This content is for general educational purposes only and does not constitute personalised financial advice. Everyone's situation is different. Always speak to a qualified, independent advisor before making pension or investment decisions. Tax rules and pension regulations change; figures quoted are accurate at time of recording.