CERS provides you with secure online access to the details of your Retirement Savings. You can view a daily updated value of your accounts.

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Every year we will automatically provide active members with an update on your Retirement Savings Account(s) including an estimated projection of the value of your pension at normal retirement age.

The up to date price for each of our investment funds can be found on the website  please click here >

Additional Voluntary Contributions, or AVCs as they are more commonly known, are extra contributions you can make to your Retirement Savings Account to top up the value available to you on retirement.

The benefits of making AVCs are:

• Maximise your potential tax-free lump sum at retirement.
• Provide a higher pension income when you retire.
• Tax Relief on contributions paid.
• Tax Free Investment Growth.

Your AVCs (together with any regular pension contributions) are payable up to the following limits:

"Remuneration" is defined as all income assessable under schedule E from this employment (including benefit in kind and the value of shares provided under a Revenue approved share purchase plan) and is currently subject to a maximum of €115,000.

The government provides support for pensions saving through tax relief. Employers will get Corporation tax relief and employees can claim tax relief at source currently at your highest rate of income tax. 

For example:

There are no tax implications to Employees on Employer contributions Investment growth is tax free during the course of your retirement savings.

The lifetime pension limit is the maximum total benefit which an individual may receive from all tax approved pension arrangements (including the pension plans of previous employers).  Currently, the amount of the lifetime limit is €2 million.

In the 2013 Budget, the Government introduced a cap in respect of pension schemes that deliver an annual pension in excess of €60,000 per annum.  This took effect from the 1^st January 2014.  

CERS can accept transfers from similarly approved pension arrangements. There is no entry charge on transfer values received by CERS. Please contact the administration for further details.

The CERS Standard Lifestyling strategy is currently the default investment choice for CERS. In other words, all contributions (including AVCs) are invested in the CERS Standard Lifestyling strategy unless a written instruction has been received by CERS from you instructing that your Retirement Savings should be moved to one or more of the other investment choices.

CERS has a wide range of investment funds available, click here for more details.

If you decide that you no longer want be invested in the Default Strategy, click here for more details of the choices currently available to you.

You can make four free fund switches per year. A charge of €50 will apply for each subsequent switch in that year.

In order to switch your fund we will require a clear written instruction from you detailing the switch. Please visit our forms page to download the "CERS Investment Instruction" form. This form can either be emailed or posted back to the administration of CERS.

Switch instructions are not effective or accepted by the Administration of CERS until confirmation of receipt of those instructions has been issued by CERS. Members are advised to contact the Administration regarding any investment instruction which has not been acknowledged as neither the Trustee, the Scheme nor the Administration accept responsibility for not processing instructions that for whatever reason have not been confirmed as set out above.

The Trustee recommend that members should take investment advice when considering their investment choice.

The Trustee, upon receipt of advice from their actuarial and investment advisers.

Yes. All retirement savings are totally separate from the assets of your employer and the Pension Administration Company. We offer a wide range of Investment Choices including a secure Cash Fund. Click here for more information.

If you leave your job you will cease to be an active member of CERS and your contributions will stop. On leaving service you will be notified of the options available to you which for members with more than two years service are as follows:

• Your Retirement Savings Account(s) may remain invested with CERS. If you have registered for online access this remains available to you. You continue to have investment choices.
• As an alternative to leaving your Retirement Savings Account(s) with CERS you may take a transfer payment of your retirement savings accounts to another arrangement approved by the Revenue Commissioners for this purpose.

 If your new Employer operates within the construction and related industries you may be able to continue saving for your retirement with CERS. Please contact the administration for further details.

For members with less than two years pensionable service you may not be entitled to the value of your Employer contributions. Please refer to your member booklet for further details.

Revenue rules currently state that you can only take a refund of the value of your own personal contributions less 20% tax if you have been a member of your Employers pension arrangement for less than two years at your date of leaving (including transferred in service). This benefit can only be paid when you leave employment.

Upon leaving service with your employer you may take a transfer payment of your benefit entitlement from your Retirement Savings Account(s) to another occupational pension scheme, Buy out Bond or PRSA (subject to certain conditions).

Possibly. You will need to get the receiving scheme to confirm in writing that the pension benefits provided will be similar to the benefits provided by the arrangement that you are transferring from and that it is approved by an appropriate regulatory authority for the country concerned. Please contact CERS for more information.

In the event of your death, as an active member of CERS, the value of your Retirement Savings Account(s) will be become payable to your beneficiaries.  There may be an additional lump sum and spouses pension payable.  Please refer to your member booklet.  Under the Trust, the Trustee have absolute discretion as to who a Death Benefit is payable.

Subject to Revenue limits, part of the benefit (approximately four times your salary) could be payable as a lump sum. The balance (if any) would be payable in the form of pension(s) to your Beneficiaries. You may if you wish fill out the Nomination Form (available on our Forms page), to assist the Trustee in exercising this discretion. The Nomination Form would not however be binding on the Trustee.

Normal retirement age is any time between the ages of 60 and 70.  Please refer to your booklet for the normal retirement age of your Employers sponsored arrangement.  It may be possible to take early retirement at any time from the age of 50. If you are a Proprietary Director and you wish to retire before age 60, it will be necessary to sever your connections with the Company before the Revenue will allow you to take the early retirement benefits. 

On retirement, members may currently receive a retirement lump sum of up to 1.5 times annual earnings (assuming they are retiring at their normal retirement age having completed at least 20 years’ service with their employer).  For this purpose, annual earnings averaged over any three consecutive years in the last 13 years prior to retirement may be taken into account.  This maximum lump sum is inclusive of any lump sums which a member receives from other pension arrangements.

Currently lump sums are tax free up to €200,000.  Lump sums between €200,000 and €575,000 will be taxed at the basic rate (currently 20%) and lump sums in excess of €575,000 will be taxed at an individual’s marginal rates.

The ARF facility is available to all members of DC arrangements. This means that DC members (who are not proprietary directors) are no longer obliged to buy annuities on retirement.  Following the Finance Act 2021, AMRF plans are no longer required and you can invest directly into an Approved Retirement Fund (ARF) with the balance of your fund after availing of your 25% retirement lump sum.

We recommend our Members take investment advice when considering investment choices. The CERS Trustee preferred financial adviser is Milestone Advisory DAC. You can contact the Milestone Team team or your own financial adviser to assist you to review your investment choices. Milestone Advisory DAC can be contacted via the website (www.milestoneadvisory.ie), by post, Linden House, 4 Clonskeagh Square, Clonskeagh, Dublin 14, D14 FH90 or by email (info@milestoneadvisory.ie).

All pensions are subject to Income Tax and Universal Social Charge (USC) deduction on the PAYE basis. You will, therefore, require a Revenue Payroll Notification (RPN), in respect of pension payments. This will be requested by CERS pension payroll department from Revenue when your Benefit is being processed through payroll. If we do not receive a valid RPN, your Benefit will be taxed on the Emergency Tax basis and you may need to contact Revenue directly.  

To contact Revenue, please visit www.revenue.ie or by phone (01) 738 3636. 

It may be of assistance to note that the Registered Employer’s Number of the Pension Scheme is 0065485S.

The Universal Social Charge is a tax payable on gross income from all sources if the total exceeds €13,000 per annum (not including Dept. of Social Protection Payments).

The Universal Social Charge individual deduction rates are issued on your tax credit certificate (RPN), by Revenue. If you have any query relating to the amount of USC deducted please contact Revenue directly to query or update your details.

If you have to cease working due to serious ill-health you can usually take your retirement benefits as soon as that happens. However, if you haven’t been contributing to your pension plan for long then the fund is likely to be small and the benefits low. Your Employer may have a separate Income Protection Scheme in place. Please contact CERS if you have any queries.

What was the Pension Levy?

The Minister for Finance introduced a temporary Pension Levy of 0.6% of pension fund assets, payable for each of the 4 years 2011 - 2014 and an additional levy of 0.15% for 2014 and 2015.  Therefore, in 2014 the levy increased to 0.75% and in 2015, the levy was 0.15%.  The levy was based on the market value of the pension fund on 30 June each year and applied to all pension policies

The levy has been discontinued from 2016.

If you want to make a complaint, you should first contact the Administration Team on 01 407 1430 or email info@cers.ie. We will try to resolve the matter for you as quickly as possible.

If you are not satisfied with the response then you or someone acting on your behalf can bring a complaint or dispute to the Trustee of the Scheme. You must provide full written details of the complaint or dispute together with supporting information. A note setting out the details the Trustee require in regard to your complaint or dispute is available from the CERS Administration Team, Linden House, 4 Clonskeagh Square, Clonskeagh Road, Dublin 14 or phone 01 407 1430.

Your complaint will be investigated. Typically this stage will involve making enquiries of relevant persons and this may include seeking clarification from you about the complaint. It may also be necessary for the Trustee to obtain advice from the Scheme’s expert advisers.

Following the investigation, the Trustee will consider your complaint and reach a decision. You will receive a response from the Trustee summarising their decision on the complaint within three months of the Trustee receiving the full details of your complaint (including all the supporting documents).

If you are not satisfied with the Trustee decision, then provided you have completed the previous steps outlined above, you may be able to ask the Pensions Ombudsman to investigate your complaint. A standard form must be used and this is available from the Pensions Ombudsman’s office at 36 Upper Mount Street, Dublin 2 (or the website www.pensionsombudsman.ie). There is no charge for the Ombudsman’s services.

If you have any further questions please contact the Administration team via email (info@cers.ie) or by phone (01)  4071430.