Informed Decisions: Ireland's Independent Retirement Planning Podcast

Most people spend decades building wealth and never quite get to the second question: not how do I protect this, but what do I actually want it to do? On this episode, Paddy Delaney talks to Denise Charlton, CEO of Community Foundation Ireland, about strategic philanthropy in Ireland. How it actually works, and where to start.

What you'll learn:

• How a Donor Advised Fund works in Ireland, and why the entry point is lower than most assume (€25,000–€50,000)
• The difference between ad-hoc giving and strategic philanthropy
• How tax relief and Capital Acquisitions Tax exemptions apply to charitable giving in Ireland
• How families bring the next generation into a giving conversation, and how endowments work in perpetuity

If you've built significant wealth and you're starting to ask what it's actually for, this conversation is worth your time.

About the Guest

Denise Charlton is Chief Executive of Community Foundation Ireland, the country's leading philanthropic foundation. Her career spans senior leadership at the Immigrant Council of Ireland and Women's Aid; she was a founder of Marriage Equality, and she currently sits on the board of Cuan, the State's statutory agency for sexual and gender-based violence. You can find Community Foundation Ireland at communityfoundation.ie.

🎙️ Full podcast episode and 📖 Blog: www.informeddecisions.ie/post/strategic-philanthropy-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.

This one was recorded a while back (in 2024), but the argument hasn't dated a day, if anything, it holds up better now than when we first put it out. A of complexity in Irish pension and investment advice isn't there to help you. It's there to help the person selling it. In this episode, Paddy explains why simplicity almost always beats sophistication when it comes to your pension and investment planning, and what a genuinely simple structure actually looks like.

What you'll learn:

● Why financial firms are often incentivised to make your pension and investments more complicated than they need to be

● The real-world cost of sophisticated, structured investment products that underperform

● What a simple, transparent pension and investment structure actually looks like in practice

● The questions worth asking any advisor before trusting them with your retirement assets

If you've ever had a feeling that your own pension or investment structure is more complicated than it needs to be, this episode is for you.

🎙️ Full podcast episode and 📖 Blog: www.informeddecisions.ie/post/simplicity-over-sophistication-pension-planning

And a quick word on something new: alongside the podcast, I've started putting together shorter pieces for YouTube: Paddy's Pension Pieces. Each one built around a single question from a fuller episode or a specific topic I'd like to discuss in shorter time . The first is up now, on what a €1 million pension pot in Ireland actually leaves you with after tax: check out our YT Channel to discover :) More to follow.

📊 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.

Two people can retire with the same ARF, the same average return, and the same withdrawal rate and still end up in completely different places. One leaves over €1m to his family. The other runs out of money before he turns 88. The only difference is the order in which the returns arrived. In this episode, Paddy breaks down sequence of returns risk in Ireland. The risk that gets far less attention than fund performance or pot size, but can matter more than either. What you'll learn: • Why sequence of returns doesn't matter at all while you're still accumulating • Why the first ten years of drawdown can account for roughly 77% of your final outcome • How Revenue's 4%/5%/6% imputed distribution rules interact with this risk in an Irish ARF • Four practical ways to protect your ARF: cash buffers, dynamic withdrawal, portfolio construction, and timing flexibility If you're within a decade of retirement, or already drawing an income from your ARF, this is worth half an hour of your time. Enjoy! 🎙️ Find all the full podcast episode and 📖 Blog here: www.informeddecisions.ie/post/sequence-of-returns-risk-ireland 📊 Want to check where you are? Try our free 5-minute Retirement Readiness Scorecard: www.informeddecisions.ie/pension-calculator 📅 Find out how we work: 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.

An Enduring Power of Attorney (EPA) is the planning step most Irish adults never get to. Only around 8% have one, against roughly a third who've made a will. Yet if you lost capacity tomorrow, it's the document that decides whether the people you trust can actually act for you, or whether your family ends up in front of the Circuit Court.

Paddy Delaney is joined by Áine Flynn, Director of Ireland's Decision Support Service, for a clear, practical conversation about planning ahead. If you're approaching retirement with assets to protect, this one matters.

For more information about Áine Flynn and the work of Ireland's Decision Support Service: https://www.decisionsupportservice.ie

In this episode:

• Why your next of kin can't automatically step in. And what an EPA changes
• The joint-account trap most couples assume protects them
• What it costs (€30 to register, €90 to activate) and how the DSS process works
• The "holy trinity": Will, EPA and Advance Healthcare Directive, and what each one covers

If you want genuine clarity on protecting yourself and the people you love, whatever happens, this episode is for you.

🎙️ Full episode (video) and 📖 Blog: www.informeddecisions.ie/post/enduring-power-of-attorney-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 or legal advice. Everyone's situation is different — always speak to a qualified, independent advisor (and a solicitor for legal documents) before making pension, investment or estate-planning decisions. Rules and figures change; figures quoted are accurate at time of recording.

As you get closer to retirement, move your money to safer investments. It sounds reasonable. But what if that one piece of conventional wisdom could cost you €80,000 or more?

In this episode, Paddy unpacks one of the most consequential (and most overlooked) investment decisions you'll make: whether to reduce investment risk before you retire. For a lot of Irish pension holders, this decision has already been made for them automatically, through something called lifestyling often without their knowledge or consent.

Paddy works through the two opposing risks at the heart of the decision: de-risking too early and leaving significant growth on the table in your final accumulation years and sequence-of-returns risk, the single most underappreciated danger in early retirement. Using two scenarios he shows how a default setting can quietly create an €85,000–€100,000 gap, and why the order in which your returns arrive matters more than the average.

You'll come away with a simple three-question framework to bring deliberate, personalised thinking to your own pension, instead of leaving it to a system designed for an average that doesn't exist.

What this Episode covers:

• The two real risks and why most people only know one

• Lifestyling: what your provider may be doing without telling you

• The €85k–€100k cost of de-risking too early

• Sequence-of-returns risk and the retirement 'red zone'

• The bucket strategy as a simple income buffer

• A three-question framework for the ten years before retirement

And if you like to read this episode again, read the full blog post here: www.informeddecisions.ie/post/reduce-investment-risk-before-retirement-ireland

Chapters:

00:00 - The €80,000 question

01:30 - The two real risks

04:00 - Lifestyling explained

07:00 - The real numbers

12:00 - Sequence-of-returns risk

17:00 - The decision framework

21:00 - Mistakes to avoid + ARF considerations

24:30 - Summary & key takeaways

📊 Check out our new Retirement Readiness Scorecard: www.informeddecisions.ie/retirement-readiness-scorecard

📖 Find out how we work at www.informeddecisions.ie

ABOUT THE SHOW

The Informed Decisions podcast is hosted by Paddy Delaney, QFA RPA APA, independent, fee-only retirement planner in Ireland. The podcast and the blog at informeddecisions.ie are educational resources for Irish professionals, business owners, and high-net-worth individuals navigating retirement, tax efficiency, and investment strategy.

DISCLAIMER

This podcast is for general educational purposes only. It does not constitute personalised financial advice. Figures and rules referenced reflect the position as at May 2026 and are subject to change. Always speak to a qualified, independent financial advisor about your specific situation.

If your pension is approaching or has passed €2 million, the question is no longer just how to grow it, it's how to generate income without handing a significant portion to Revenue unnecessarily. The Standard Fund Threshold in Ireland rose to €2.2 million in January 2026, and the decisions you make in the next few years will determine how much of that headroom you actually use.

In this episode, Paddy covers the income strategies that matter most at the SFT level.

If your pension is approaching €1.5 million or more, this episode is for you.

• Why timing your Benefit Crystallisation Events can shelter up to €500,000 from Chargeable Excess Tax

• How the lump sum offset mechanism reduces your CET exposure — and what the effective SFT really is in 2026

• What the imputed distribution rules mean when your ARF exceeds €2 million

• How to manage income through the standard rate tax band efficiently

• Why spousal pension planning is one of the most underused strategies at this level

📊 Find out how we work and have a look at our Retirement Readiness Scorecard: https://www.informeddecisions.ie

📖 Read the full blog: www.informeddecisions.ie/post/generating-income-standard-fund-threshold-ireland

ABOUT THE SHOW

The Informed Decisions podcast is hosted by Paddy Delaney QFA RPA APA — independent, fee-only retirement planner in Ireland. The podcast and the blog at informeddecisions.ie are educational resources for Irish professionals, business owners, and high-net-worth individuals navigating retirement, tax efficiency, and investment strategy.

DISCLAIMER

This podcast is for general educational purposes only. It does not constitute personalised financial advice. Figures and rules referenced reflect the position as at May 2026 and are subject to change. Always speak to a qualified, independent financial advisor about your specific situation.

A lot of investors have written off bonds after 2022. In this episode, Paddy Delaney explains why that conclusion is based on a misreading of how bonds work — and what the historical data actually shows.

The 10-year US Treasury yield went from under 6% to over 11% during the 1970s. Bonds still returned 5.4% per year. The worst single year was a loss of less than 1%. If bonds survived that rate environment, what does it mean for the environment we are in today?

In this episode:

- How bond returns are calculated (starting yield and duration)

- Why rising interest rates improve your future bond returns, not reduce them

- What the 1970s data shows, using Damodaran historical records

- What this means practically for anyone with bonds in an ARF or occupational pension

- A short note on lifestyling: being moved into bonds automatically is very different from choosing to hold them

This episode is relevant if you are approaching retirement, already in retirement, or reviewing an ARF or pension that includes a bond allocation.

If you would like to talk through your own situation, book a Clarity Call at www.informeddecisions.ie

Full blog post:

www.informeddecisions.ie/post/bonds-arf-retirement-ireland

• All Informed Decisions podcast episodes:

www.informeddecisions.ie/podcast/

ABOUT THE SHOW

The Informed Decisions podcast is hosted by Paddy Delaney QFA RPA APA — independent, fee-only retirement planner in Ireland. The podcast and the blog at informeddecisions.ie are educational resources for Irish professionals, business owners, and high-net-worth individuals navigating retirement, tax efficiency, and investment strategy.

Find Paddy at www.informeddecisions.ie

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 Introduction to Bonds and Market Perceptions

02:43 Understanding Bonds: Their Role and Functionality

05:20 The Impact of Interest Rates on Bond Investments

08:20 Predictability of Bond Returns and Historical Context

11:11 The Mechanics of Bond Funds and Their Advantages

14:01 Current Bond Market Landscape and Future Outlook

17:03 Strategic Considerations for Investors and Pension Holders

19:46 Common Misconceptions and Mistakes in Bond Investing

22:25 Key Takeaways and Final Thoughts

DISCLAIMER

This podcast is for general educational purposes only. It does not constitute personalised financial advice. Figures and rules referenced reflect the position as at May 2026 and are subject to change. Always speak to a qualified, independent financial advisor about your specific situation.

"There's a pension somewhere in your name that you haven't looked at in five years."

That's a sentence Paddy finds himself saying in client meetings more often than you'd expect. Across a 25-year career, the typical Irish professional works for three or four different employers — and the result, by the time someone reaches their mid-fifties, is often €100,000 to €500,000 spread across multiple dormant pensions that haven't been reviewed in years.

In this episode, Paddy walks through what he calls the forgotten pension problem: the structural feature of Irish pension administration that means employer-funded pensions don't follow you when you change jobs. He explains the 2-year vesting rule, what it means to be a "deferred member" of a scheme, and the four decisions every senior professional faces when leaving a role with a pension: leave it where it is, transfer to your new employer's scheme, transfer to a Personal Retirement Bond, or transfer to a PRSA.

He also covers two structural changes that took effect at the start of 2026. The first is auto-enrolment "My Future Fund", which launched on 1 January 2026 and now automatically enrols workers earning over €20,000 who aren't already in a workplace pension. The second is a new restriction: transfers from group occupational schemes to personal pension structures (PRSA or PRB) are now only permitted before Normal Retirement Age — a planning point for anyone approaching a late-career exit.

The episode closes with the annual pension audit — three questions Paddy walks through with clients each year to address the forgotten pension problem deliberately rather than letting inertia decide.

TIMESTAMPS

(00:00) Introduction to Forgotten Pensions

(01:53) Understanding the Forgotten Pension Problem

(07:32) Options for Managing Your Pension

(18:26) Recent Changes in Pension Regulations

(27:12) Key Considerations for Senior Professionals

(31:15) Strategies to Address the Forgotten Pension Problem

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• Full blog post (with the four-options framework, 2026 rule changes, and audit checklist):

https://www.informeddecisions.ie/pension-when-you-change-jobs-ireland/

• Companion episode — PRSA vs Company Pension / Master Trust:

https://www.informeddecisions.ie/prsa-vs-company-pension-ireland/

• All Informed Decisions podcast episodes:

https://www.informeddecisions.ie/podcast/

ABOUT THE SHOW

The Informed Decisions podcast is hosted by Paddy Delaney QFA RPA APA — independent, fee-only retirement planner in Ireland. The podcast and the blog at informeddecisions.ie are educational resources for Irish professionals, business owners, and high-net-worth individuals navigating retirement, tax efficiency, and investment strategy.

Find Paddy at https://informeddecisions.ie

DISCLAIMER

This podcast is for general educational purposes only. It does not constitute personalised financial advice. Figures and rules referenced reflect the position as at May 2026 and are subject to change. Always speak to a qualified, independent financial advisor about your specific situation.

After the 22 April IORP II deadline, thousands of Irish directors are now in a pension structure they didn't deliberately choose. Most transitioned from an executive pension to a Master Trust or a PRSA under time pressure. Few sat down to ask whether the resulting structure is actually the one that serves them best.

In this episode, Paddy walks through the PRSA versus Executive Pension / Master Trust decision in detail: Funding mechanics, lump sum comparison, death benefit treatment, and the second decision most people never review: the investment mandate inside the structure.

The episode is anchored to an anonymised client story: a company director in his mid-60s who came to Informed Decisions in early 2023 with a €1.4m pension and one question. Less than three years later, with a different structure and a different investment mandate, that pension is worth over €2m. The estimated cost of taking the "safe" advice he was offered elsewhere: approximately €500,000 of growth.

WHAT'S COVERED

• Why the IORP II deadline forced a structural decision under time pressure
• How PRSA contribution rules changed in 2023 and 2025
• When the Master Trust's salary-and-service formula beats the PRSA's 100 % cap
• How the 1.5× salary lump sum compares to the PRSA's 25 % rule
• Why the PRSA's uncapped death benefit can change estate planning
• How the Standard Fund Threshold (€2.2m → €2.8m by 2029) affects strategy
• Why de-risking at 65 doesn't fit modern Irish retirement timelines

Full written breakdown with comparison table, IORP II timeline, and FAQs: www.informeddecisions.ie/post/prsa-vs-company-pension-ireland

If this episode raised questions about your current contribution strategy is going to get you where you want to go, that's exactly what we work through with clients. Find out more at https://www.informeddecisions.ie

ABOUT

Informed Decisions is an independent, fee-only financial advisory firm in Ireland. Paddy Delaney works with a small number of clients each year, typically business owners and senior professionals approaching retirement, to plan and protect retirement decisions in coordinated, tax-efficient ways.

If today's episode raised questions about your own pension: whether the structure is right, whether the investment mandate has been reviewed, or how to think about both together: visit https://www.informeddecisions.ie to see how we work.

DISCLAIMER

This podcast 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.

Most people approaching retirement believe their job is to reduce risk. Get out of equities. Move into something safe. Ben Carlson disagrees — and he has the research to back it up.

Ben is Director at Ritholtz Wealth Management in the US, author of Risk and Reward (Harriman House, May 2026), and one of the most widely read financial writers working today. He's spent his career studying every major market crash in modern history: the Great Depression, Japan's lost decades, the dot-com bust, 2008 and what they actually mean for long-term investors.

In this episode, Paddy and Ben talk about Ben's new Book:

• They cover the yin and yang of Risk and Reward
• Why globally diversified investors still came out ahead from financial crises
• The three dimensions of risk tolerance (willingness, need, and ability)
• How to think about drawdown and bucketing, inflation psychology, and the only benchmark that actually matters for someone approaching retirement.

Ben's new book Risk and Reward is available now in Kindle, paperback, and audiobook (read by Ben himself) from Harriman House.

There's a full written article about this Interview with Ben on the blog at http://www.informeddecisions.ie/post/retirement-risk-and-reward-ireland

If this episode raised questions about where you sit on the age-related table or whether your current contribution strategy is going to get you where you want to go, that's exactly what we work through with clients. Find out more at https://www.informeddecisions.ie

DISCLAIMER: This content is for general educational purposes only and does not constitute personalised financial advice. Always speak to a qualified, independent advisor about your own situation.