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 sit above and below
Why trust in financial services runs at 73% in developing economies and 53% in developed ones
Which sub-sectors are trusted least, and why banks score higher than financial advisers
What the tracker mortgage scandal actually cost, and why it is far more recent than most people remember
The one question to ask any adviser about how they are paid, and what the answer tells you
If you are weighing up financial advice in Ireland, particularly with significant pension or investment assets behind you, this episode is about how to judge who is worth listening to.
🎙️ Full podcast episode and 📖 Blog: www.informeddecisions.ie/post/trust-financial-advice-ireland
📊 Want to check where you are? Try our free 10-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.

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 1.5% prize fund rate is not interest, and what it actually describes
What the odds look like in practice: 0.067% per bond, and a 59% chance of a year with nothing on a €5,000 holding
The new State Savings rates: 1.96%, 2.29%, 2.33% and 2.66%, all tax-free, and the one product that pays DIRT
How to compare any bank rate properly by dividing the gross rate by 0.67
Why the State Savings guarantee has no €100,000 ceiling, and who that actually matters to
The trap in locking a 10-year rate, and why "eaten bread is soon forgotten" belongs in this decision
 If you are holding Prize Bonds, State Savings or cash on deposit in Ireland and want to know what those balances are really doing, this episode is for you.
 🎙️ Full podcast episode and 📖 Blog: https://informeddecisions.ie/prize-bonds-ireland-what-the-rate-means/
📊 Want to check where you are? Try our free 10-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.

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 €3,000 small gift exemption works, what makes it fail, and why it is worth far more over time than the figure suggests
• How capital gains tax paid by a parent can be credited against a child's inheritance tax bill and the two-year condition attached to it
• What a business transfer needs in place in the ten years before it happens, and why the child has to be in the room
• Family partnerships: how they work, who they suit, and what they cost you in privacy
• The US Federal Estate Tax exposure sitting in Irish households through employer shares, and the $60,000 threshold behind it
We recorded this just as the roadmap for the taxation of private investments was published; it therefore also provides an initial outlook on the investment account to be introduced in 2027 and its implications for notional disposals.
If you are approaching retirement with a business, property or a portfolio that will have to move at some point, or you are in line to inherit and would rather understand it in advance, this episode is for you.
🎙️ Full podcast episode and 📖 Blog: www.informeddecisions.ie/post/inheritance-tax-ireland-gift-or-inherit 
📊 Want to check where you are? Try our free 10-minute Retirement Readiness Scorecard: www.informeddecisions.ie/pension-calculator 
📅 Find out how we work: www.informeddecisions.ie 
🔗 Mairéad Hennessy, Taxkey: www.taxkey.ie 
Book mentioned: Self Employed – The Forgotten Community by Dan O'Donoghue: https://buythebook.ie/product/self-employed-the-forgotten-community/ 
DISCLAIMER This content is for general educational purposes only and does not constitute personalised financial or tax advice. Everyone's situation is different: always speak to a qualified, independent advisor before making pension, investment or estate planning decisions. Tax rules and pension regulations change; figures quoted are accurate at time of recording.

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 sequence-of-returns case study: how two retirees with the same €1.2m and the same average return finished €1.25m apart
• The Irish nuance: why Revenue's imputed distribution makes the buffer inside your ARF matter more than any market call
 
If you're within a couple of years of drawing down, and the timing has you worried, this episode is for you.
 
🎙️ Full podcast episode and 📖 Blog: www.informeddecisions.ie/post/should-i-retire-at-all-time-highs-ireland
📊 Want to check where you are? Try our free 10-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.

#PensionIreland #RetirementPlanningIreland #SequenceOfReturnsRisk
#StockMarketAllTimeHigh #ARFIreland

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.