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 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
📖 Blog: www.informeddecisions.ie/post/how-long-should-retirement-plan-last-ireland 
📊 Want to check where you are? Try our free 5-minute Retirement Readiness Scorecard: https://www.informeddecisions.ie/pension-calculator 
📅 Find out how we work: https://www.informeddecisions.ie 
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.

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 to the one you bought a decade ago. For anyone drawing an income from an ARF, that second fact matters a great deal more than most people realise.
In this episode, Paddy walks through what has actually happened inside these funds while we have been getting on with things: why a cap-weighted index concentrates all on its own, what the published weightings look like right now, and why the very same allocation means something completely different depending on whether you are still contributing or already drawing an income. He uses a worked Irish example (Seamus, 65, with €900,000 in an ARF held in a single global fund) to show what concentration actually looks like under the bonnet, and where Revenue's imputed distribution quietly turns a concentrated investor into a forced seller.
What you'll learn:
Why a cap-weighted index quietly concentrates over time, and why nobody writes to tell you
What a global equity fund actually holds today: 72.45% United States, 26.6% in ten companies, 30.27% in one sector
Why concentration is a volatility question at 52 and a sequencing question at 65
What Revenue's imputed distribution does to an investor who is already concentrated
Why over-correcting, like running to cash, is usually the more expensive mistake of the two
The one variable in this whole picture you actually control
None of this is an argument against index investing, and it is not a forecast. It is an argument for being able to describe what you own before you decide how you feel about it. Never mind before you decide what to do about it. If you hold an ARF invested in a single global fund and you haven't seen a factsheet in years, this episode is for you.
🎙️ Full podcast episode and 📖 Blog: www.informeddecisions.ie/post/market-concentration-irish-pensions 
📊 Want to check where you are? Try our free 5-minute Retirement Readiness Scorecard: https://www.informeddecisions.ie/pension-calculator 
📅 Find out how we work: https://www.informeddecisions.ie 
 
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.

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 €500,000, and the marginal rate above it
Why an uncrystallised pension carries no mandatory drawdown, and what imputed distribution at 4% from age 61 means once you have crystallised
What five years of 5% to 6% growth is actually worth in net lump sum terms and why the honest answer is a range, not a number
Where the Standard Fund Threshold genuinely bites and where it doesn't, including why a threshold rising €200,000 a year to 2029 changes the usual "don't let it grow too big" advice
The three mistakes that decide most of these cases in practice
If you're approaching retirement with a significant pension pot and you've been assuming 60 or 65 is the moment you have to act, this episode is for you. 
🎙️ Full podcast episode and 📖 Blog: www.informeddecisions.ie/post/tfls-at-60-or-wait-ireland
📊 Want to check where you are? Try our free 5-minute Retirement Readiness
Scorecard: https://www.informeddecisions.ie/pension-calculator 
📅 Find out how we work: https://www.informeddecisions.ie 
 
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.

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 considerations there are regarding private loans and equity investments when it comes to your retirement planning. 
What you'll learn:
What an evergreen or semi-liquid fund actually is, and why a redemption window is nothing like selling a share
Why the value on your statement can lag what is really happening in the underlying businesses by months
What a zombie fund is, and why roughly 48% of the institutional investors surveyed by Coller Capital already hold one
Why illiquid assets collide badly with ARF drawdown, where Revenue requires you to draw at least 4% a year from age 61
The four questions to ask before you sign anything and what a vague answer actually tells you  
None of this means private markets are wicked, or that nobody should ever own them. It means a bit of healthy scepticism is no bad thing. If you are approaching or already in retirement and someone has put one of these opportunities in front of you, this episode is for you.
 
🎙️ Full podcast episode and 📖 Blog: www.informeddecisions.ie/post/zombie-funds-private-markets-ireland
📊 Want to check where you are? Try our free 5-minute Retirement Readiness Scorecard: https://www.informeddecisions.ie/pension-calculator 
📅 Find out how we work: https://www.informeddecisions.ie 
 
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.

If you've built a pension pot of €1m or more, you've almost certainly thought about how you'll invest it in retirement. What a bunch of people haven't thought through properly is how they'll actually take the money out: that decision, not the fund selection, is often what determines whether your ARF supports you comfortably for thirty years, or gives you a fright in year eight.
After his well deserved holiday, in this episode Paddy talks about retirement withdrawal strategies for an Irish ARF: the bucket strategy versus the total return strategy, and why the choice works differently here than in the US or UK research you'll have read. If you're approaching, or already in, retirement with €1m+ in an ARF, and you're not sure whether you have a withdrawal plan or just a fund value, this one is for you.
What you'll learn:
• How the bucket strategy and the total return (guardrails) strategy actually work inside an ARF
• Why Revenue's imputed distribution welds a hard 4% floor under your withdrawals from age 61 (ARF under €2m)
• What a 20% down year does to a €1.2m ARF under each approach and why a hybrid often captures the best of both
• The three most common drawdown mistakes and how to avoid them
If you're approaching retirement with a significant pension pot and want genuine clarity on turning it into a sustainable, tax-aware income, this episode is for you.
🎙️ Full podcast episode and 📖 Blog: https://www.informeddecisions.ie/post/retirement-withdrawal-strategies-drawdown-risk 
Check out our new category on YouTube: Paddy's Pension Pieces. Smaller, condensed content of our topics, where Paddy condenses longer topics into shorter clips, covers topics that are hot off the press or shares timeless classics that are always relevant to pension planning.
📊 Want to check where you are? Try our free 5-minute Retirement Readiness Scorecard: https://www.informeddecisions.ie/pension-calculator 
📅 Find out how we work: https://www.informeddecisions.ie 
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.