Financial planning for every stage of life, from protection and pensions to retirement,
investment and estate planning, walked in the order experience teaches it must be walked.
A financial plan is not a collection of products. It is a sequence of decisions, made in the correct order.
Across decades of advising Irish families, we have observed that the most consequential financial errors are almost never errors of analysis. They are errors of sequence. A pension built before adequate income protection. An investment portfolio constructed before debt is brought under discipline. A legacy plan drafted before retirement income has been resolved.
We frame the right order as a hierarchy: seven tiers, each resting upon the one below, each earning the right to the one above. Three stacks group them — a foundation that secures the base, a growth stack that builds and then draws upon wealth over time, and a final tier concerned with passing on what has been built.
The hierarchy is not what we recommend to our clients. It is the framework within which every recommendation is made.
— Passing on what has been built.
— Drawing down and managing capital.
— The engine of a working life.
— Capital assembled for the goals you can see.
— Clearing the path before the journey begins.
— The promise the plan will survive the unexpected.
— The ground beneath the plan.
A plan is sound to the extent that the tiers beneath any given recommendation have been addressed before it is made.
ALONGSIDE EVERY TIER
Three parts of our service do not belong to any single tier, because they run through all of them.
Standalone Financial Planning Consultation | A single session to work through a specific question, without any obligation to proceed further. | |
Claims Assistance | Practical support at the moment a claim is made, when the plan is called upon and the family has other things to think about. | |
Vulnerable & Later-Life Customer Support | Circumstances change, sometimes temporarily. Where a client needs additional support to engage with us, we provide it, and we record what is needed so it does not have to be explained twice. | |
Tier 1 · Personal
Foundation Stack · The ground beneath the plan.
Before any policy is purchased, any pension established, or any investment selected, a household must understand the geometry of its own income and expenditure. Liquidity is not a product. It is the cash architecture — mapped through honest budgeting and cashflow planning — that determines whether every other tier above it can function as intended.
A practical working reserve, held in instant-access deposit, is the precondition of every higher tier. Its purpose is not investment return. Its purpose is that the plan above it does not have to be dismantled when the unexpected arrives.
We understand that this conversation is often regarded as the least sophisticated stage of a financial review. It is, in our experience, the one on which the most disciplined wealth is built.
WHAT SITS AT THIS TIER
Budget & Cashflow Planning | A structured map of household income against expenditure. Establishes what the plan above it can safely be asked to carry. |
Emergency Fund | A working reserve of several months’ expenditure held on instant access, so the long-term plan need not be disturbed when the unexpected arrives. |
Instant Access & Demand Deposit Accounts | Bank accounts holding cash on instant-access terms, protected under the Deposit Guarantee Scheme up to the applicable limit per institution. |
Debt Management | Keeping routine borrowings serviced and visible within the household cashflow, before the structural work of Tier Three begins. |
Redundancy & Severance Planning | Working through what a termination payment means for immediate cashflow, and what the pension and tax elements require. Connects to Tier Five. |
“Cash flow is rarely what clients come to us to discuss. It is, without exception, where we begin.”
— Paddy Keenan MSc QFA, Principal & Senior Financial Consultant
QUESTIONS WORTH SITTING WITH
Could your household meet six months of fixed expenditure without disturbing any long-term plan?
If your primary income were interrupted tomorrow, what would change first?
Where is your working reserve held, and when was it last reviewed?
Tier 1 of 7
Tier 2 · Personal
Foundation Stack · The promise the plan will survive the unexpected.
Above the reserve sits the second tier. The events that derail a household’s financial trajectory — illness, injury, premature death — are not investment events. They are the events for which investment is no defence.
Protection is the structural acknowledgement that the income on which a household depends, the home in which it lives, and the people who rely on its continuity must each be insured against disruption.
Every engagement at this tier begins with an assessment of income, dependants, existing entitlements, debt obligations and long-term objectives — before any recommendation is made. We then search the provider panel to construct a framework calibrated to your life as it is, and resilient enough to serve your family as it evolves.
WHAT SITS AT THIS TIER
Mortgage Protection | Decreasing-term life cover that clears the outstanding balance on a principal-dwelling mortgage on death, lifting that burden from those already carrying personal loss. | |
Term Life Assurance | Life cover paying a lump sum on death within a defined term. Replaces income or capital a family had planned around, for the period the need exists. | |
Whole-of-Life Cover | Life cover that pays whenever death occurs, not only within a fixed term. Suited to a liability certain to arise, including a future inheritance tax bill. | |
Income Protection | A long-term replacement income paid when illness or injury prevents work. Premiums attract income tax relief at your marginal rate. | |
Specified / Serious Illness Cover | A tax-free lump sum paid on diagnosis of one of a defined list of medical conditions, making capital available the moment a serious diagnosis is made. | |
Pension Term Assurance | Life cover structured within the pension wrapper, which can reduce the post-tax cost of the same headline cover. | |
Private Health Insurance | Cover for private hospital care, consultant fees and elective procedures. Underpins the speed of access to treatment, with choice of consultant and facility. | |
Claims Assistance | Support in making and progressing a claim, at the point the cover is called upon. | |
“The most common protection failure is not the absence of cover. It is the absence of cover that still fits.”
— Barry Oliver LIB QFA EFA, Principal & Founder
QUESTIONS WORTH SITTING WITH
When was your mortgage protection sum assured last set, and against what version of your life?
If you were unable to work for twelve months, how long would your savings sustain the household?
Does your specified illness cover reflect the financial reality of a serious diagnosis today, not the one assumed at policy inception?
Tier 2 of 7
Tier 3 · Personal
Foundation Stack · Clearing the path before the journey begins.
Debt is not, in itself, a financial failing. Sustained discipline around it, however, is a precondition of every tier above it. A household carrying high-cost credit while contributing to an investment plan has, in arithmetic terms, accepted a guaranteed cost in pursuit of an uncertain return. The order is wrong.
We distinguish carefully between structurally productive debt — a mortgage at a competitive rate against an appreciating residence — and consumption debt at rates that consistently outpace any reasonable post-tax investment return. The first is managed through periodic review. The second is prioritised, cleared, and kept clear.
For households in mortgage difficulty, the framework is more structured. The Mortgage Arrears Resolution Process (MARP), governed by the Consumer Protection Code, is one in which a qualified adviser plays a central role. In our experience, that is a conversation always better had earlier than later.
WHAT SITS AT THIS TIER
Mortgage Review | A periodic assessment of an existing mortgage against the current market for rate, term and structure. |
Mortgage Analysis | A structured comparison of offers across the Irish lender market, placing the decision to move — or to stay — on evidence rather than inertia. |
Debt Prioritisation & Clearing | A disciplined order for repaying borrowings, highest real cost first, eliminating the guaranteed drag that undermines any uncertain return above it. |
Debt Management (MARP) | The Mortgage Arrears Resolution Process. A regulated pathway and adviser support during the period of greatest vulnerability. |
“Investments that do not begin with debt discipline is, in our experience, are rarely sustained.”
— Paddy Keenan MSc QFA, Principal & Senior Financial Consultant
QUESTIONS WORTH SITTING WITH
Is any debt in your household priced higher than the long-term return you expect from your investments?
When was the last full review of your mortgage rate against the current market?
If you have moved provider on energy or insurance in the past three years, have you done the same on the larger of the recurring household costs?
Tier 3 of 7
Tier 4 · Personal
Growth Stack · Capital assembled for the goals you can see.
Once liquidity is established, protection is in place, and debt is under discipline, the question of what to do with discretionary capital begins to admit useful answers. The first concerns capital intended for goals on a known horizon: a deposit, an education, a wedding, a planned change in circumstance within the next few years.
Capital with a known horizon has a known constraint. The shorter the horizon, the less volatility the capital can absorb. The structural mistake at this tier is not under-investment; it is the deployment of short-horizon capital into vehicles whose natural rhythm of return is longer than the horizon allows.
WHAT SITS AT THIS TIER
Regular Savings Plans | Monthly contributions into a managed fund under the Irish gross roll-up regime, deploying capital systematically across market cycles and reducing the impact of timing on return. |
Investment Bonds (single premium) | Lump-sum investments in a life-assurance investment contract, taxed on a deemed disposal basis, with access to multi-asset and specialist funds and partial encashment as needs evolve. |
State Savings | Prize Bonds, Savings Certificates, the National Solidarity Bond and others. Returns are tax-free and capital is backed by the State. |
Bare Trusts | A simple legal arrangement under which capital is held by trustees for a named beneficiary, often a child. |
Small Gift Allowance Savings Policies | Regular savings structured around the annual small gift exemption, moving capital across a generation without a Capital Acquisitions Tax (CAT) charge arising. |
“A savings plan that funds a known life event on schedule, without market drama, is a sophisticated piece of financial engineering — however modest it appears on the page.”
— Paddy Keenan MSc QFA, Principal & Senior Financial Consultant
QUESTIONS WORTH SITTING WITH
Which specific goals does your savings capital exist to fund, and on what time horizon?
Is short-horizon capital deployed against short-horizon risk, or is it borrowing time it does not have?
Have you considered whether a structured gifting programme could move capital across a generation more efficiently?
Tier 4 of 7
Tier 5 · Personal
Growth Stack · The engine of a working life.
At the fifth tier the time horizon lengthens, and the tax architecture becomes definitive. Ireland’s pension regime offers, within age-related limits and statutory funding thresholds, income tax relief at your marginal rate on contributions, tax-free growth within the fund, and a significant tax-free lump sum at retirement. The compound effect of those three reliefs, applied systematically across a working life, is the most powerful wealth-accumulation engine available under Irish law.
Within these structures, capital is invested through unit-linked and managed funds matched to your horizon and risk profile. For some, investment property forms part of the long-horizon picture. Each recommendation rests on a documented suitability assessment — the discipline that keeps the engine aligned with the life it serves.
The State Pension was designed as a foundation, not a destination. The gap between State provision and the retirement expected is a problem that requires a structured solution, begun as early as possible.
WHAT SITS AT THIS TIER
Personal Retirement Savings Account (PRSA) | A portable, individually owned pension contract available regardless of employment status, travelling with you through career transitions. |
Personal Pension Plan | The equivalent contract for the self-employed and those without access to an occupational scheme. |
Occupational Pension Schemes | Employer-sponsored pension provision held under trust. |
Retail Master Trust | A multi-employer occupational scheme providing governance, default fund choice and administration at scale. |
Additional Voluntary Contributions (AVCs) | Contributions made within an occupational scheme to top up retirement provision, within Revenue limits, at your marginal rate of relief. |
My Future Fund (Auto-Enrolment) | The State automatic enrolment retirement savings system, capturing employees not otherwise enrolled, with State and employer contributions added to their own. |
Personal Retirement Bonds (PRBs) | Pension contracts used to consolidate benefits left behind in a former employer’s scheme. |
Self-Directed Pension Options | Arrangements giving the member direct control over the underlying investments rather than a default fund choice. |
Pension Consolidation & Tracing Lost Pensions | A dedicated service that locates entitlements left in former employments, reviews each against your current arrangements, and consolidates them where it serves the retirement outcome. |
Leaving Service Options Advice | The decision set that arises when you leave an employer: preserve, transfer to a PRB, transfer to a new scheme, or take a refund where eligible. |
Enhanced Transfer Value (ETV) Offer Analysis | Independent assessment of an employer’s offer to transfer out of a defined benefit scheme, against the benefit given up. |
Cross-Border Pension Transfers | Advice on moving pension entitlements between jurisdictions, and on whether doing so serves the outcome. |
Divorce Planning & Pension Adjustment Orders | The pension consequences of separation and divorce, and the mechanics of a Pension Adjustment Order. |
Unit-Linked & Actively Managed Funds | The investment vehicles within a pension or bond, spreading capital across asset classes and markets, matched to your horizon and risk profile. |
Investment Property | Direct or fund-held property forming part of a long-horizon portfolio, considered for income and diversification. |
Suitability Assessment | The documented analysis matching every recommendation to your needs, horizon, risk appetite and capacity for loss. |
“Time is the most powerful force in pension planning — and it compounds equally in both directions. Every year without adequate provision is a year of relief foregone and growth lost.”
— Paddy Keenan MSc QFA, Principal & Senior Financial Consultant
QUESTIONS WORTH SITTING WITH
If you stopped contributing today, what would your retirement income look like, and is that the future you intend?
How many separate pension entitlements do you hold across previous employments, and when did you last review them?
For your stated retirement age, is your funding within Revenue limits, and are you using all of the headroom available to you?
Tier 5 of 7
Tier 6 · Personal
Growth Stack · Drawing down and managing capital.
The fifth tier builds the fund. The sixth decides how it is drawn upon — the point at which a plan built well over decades can be undone by a few decisions taken without sequence. This is the tier at which capital must do two things at once: produce a dependable income, and remain diversified enough to last.
Alongside the pension sit the wider instruments of a diversified estate. In retirement, diversification is not a growth strategy. It is the discipline that lets income survive a market that does not cooperate.
We access the Irish and international markets without bias towards any single provider, and operate no proprietary funds. Every recommendation is traceable to your stated objective, your tax position, and your capacity for the volatility implied.
WHAT SITS AT THIS TIER
The State Pension | Establishing what you are entitled to, and when, so the rest of the income plan is built on the correct base. |
Pension Drawdown & Phased Retirement | How, and how quickly, the fund converts into income — and whether work tapers rather than stops. |
Early Access to Your Pension in Ill-Health | The route to accessing retirement benefits ahead of normal retirement age where health requires it. |
Approved Retirement Fund (ARF) | A post-retirement vehicle that keeps capital invested and within your control after the pension is drawn. |
ARF Imputed Distribution | Managing the annual withdrawal that Revenue rules require from an ARF, so it is anticipated rather than absorbed. |
Vested PRSA | The alternative post-retirement structure, retaining the PRSA wrapper after benefits are taken. |
Annuity | A guaranteed income for life purchased from a pension fund. Offers certainty in place of flexibility. |
De-risking Strategies | The progressive adjustment of risk as withdrawals begin, recognising that the volatility a fund could absorb in accumulation becomes a different question once income is being taken. |
Distribution Management | The order in which assets are drawn, so that income survives a poor market in the early years of retirement. |
Investment Bonds | Life-assurance investment contracts held outside the pension, under the gross roll-up regime. |
Direct Equities & Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) | Direct ownership of listed shares, and funds tracking an index or basket of assets, taxed under their own regimes. |
Government & Corporate Bonds | Fixed-income securities paying a defined coupon and returning principal at maturity. Provide a defined income stream and a measure of capital preservation. |
Tracker Funds & Structured Products | Defined-return investments offering specific participation in an underlying index or asset, often with full or partial capital protection. |
Unit-Linked & Actively Managed Funds | Multi-asset and specialist funds used to hold retirement capital at a risk level matched to the income being drawn from it. |
“The years immediately surrounding retirement are, in our experience, the period in which expert guidance delivers the most measurable financial benefit.”
— Barry Oliver LIB QFA EFA, Principal & Founder
QUESTIONS WORTH SITTING WITH
When you stop earning, which assets will produce your income first, and in what order will the rest be drawn?
If markets fell sharply in your first years of retirement, would your income plan survive without selling at the worst possible moment?
Is the diversification of your retirement assets a deliberate structure, or the residual of accumulated decisions?
Tier 6 of 7
Tier 7 · Personal
Tax & Legacy · The final expression of the plan.
At the seventh tier the question shifts from accumulation to transmission. The wealth assembled across a working life does not, in itself, secure its passage to the next generation. Without structured intent, even the most carefully built estate can be materially diminished by Capital Acquisitions Tax (CAT), by family complexity, or by the simple absence of clear direction.
The structures that address it are not difficult to design. They are difficult to design retrospectively.
Generation after generation, the families we have served longest are those for whom this tier has been considered, structured and reviewed in advance — not contemplated for the first time when the event that calls upon it has already arrived.
WHAT SITS AT THIS TIER
Inheritance Tax (CAT) Planning | Establishing the exposure that exists today on the assumption that nothing changes, and structuring against it in good time. |
Section 72 Life Policies | A whole-of-life policy written in trust, designed under Section 72 of the Capital Acquisitions Tax Consolidation Act 2003 to fund a future CAT liability free of CAT itself. Transforms a future tax bill into a predictable premium. |
Section 73 Savings Plans | A regular-premium savings plan taken out by intended beneficiaries, with proceeds applied to discharge their CAT liability free of CAT. An effective alternative where Section 72 is unavailable. |
Bare & Discretionary Trusts for Children | Legal structures that transfer or hold capital for the next generation — outright through a bare trust, or with retained control through a discretionary trust. |
Small Gift Exemption Gifting | Systematic use of the annual per-donor, per-donee CAT exemption to move capital across multiple beneficiaries and years. |
Capital Gains Tax (CGT) — Timing & Disposal Strategy | The sequencing of disposals so that a gain is realised at the point that serves the wider plan. |
ARF Inheritance Planning | Structuring an Approved Retirement Fund with its inheritance characteristics designed in from the outset, given the treatment pension assets uniquely enjoy on death. |
Charitable Bequests | Gifts to charity structured within the estate plan, expressing philanthropic intent while, where conditions are met, reducing the taxable estate. |
WHERE THE WORK SITS WITH YOUR SOLICITOR
Two matters belong at this stage of an Irish family’s life and fall outside the regulated remit of a financial adviser.
Wills & Succession Planning | A clear, current Will, drafted by your solicitor, coordinated with the financial plan. The instrument without which every other intention is left to interpretation. | |
Enduring Power of Attorney (EPA) | The legal architecture of capacity, put in place by your solicitor while capacity is not in question. | |
We raise both in our one-to-one conversations so they are not left to fall between stools, and so the right specialist is brought to the table in good time. The drafting is your solicitor’s work; the coordination with the plan is ours.
“The greatest gift you can leave the next generation is not simply wealth. It is a plan — structured with care, executed with precision, and reviewed in partnership with advisers who know your family as well as your balance sheet.”
— Barry Oliver LIB QFA EFA, Principal & Founder
QUESTIONS WORTH SITTING WITH
What is your family’s CAT exposure today, on the assumption that nothing changes?
Is the structure you intend for transmission written, dated and reviewed — or held privately in intention only?
Does the generation that will be served by this plan know of its existence, and the names of the advisers who hold it with you?
Tier 7 of 7
Few households arrive at a financial review with all seven tiers in proportionate order. Most arrive with the upper tiers more developed than the lower: investment portfolios held alongside thin protection cover, pension contributions made alongside consumer debt, legacy intentions held privately alongside an undocumented will.
Our work, in every initial engagement, is not to recommend new products. It is to bring the tiers into the order experience has taught us they belong in.
Begin the conversation The first conversation costs nothing. The absence of one can cost a great deal. We would welcome the opportunity to understand where you sit within the hierarchy today — and, where we can add genuine value, to show you how to bring it into the order it deserves.
QUESTIONS WORTH SITTING WITH
Of the seven tiers, which sits least resolved in your household today?
If you and your partner were asked the same question separately, would the answers agree?
What is the single question, drawn from these pages, you would most like to have answered in the next quarter?
Budget & Cashflow Planning
Emergency Fund — Your Financial Safety Net
Debt Management — Clearing the Right Debt First
Standalone Financial Planning Consultation
Claims Assistance
Vulnerable & Later-Life Customer Support
Redundancy & Severance Planning
Mortgage Protection
Term Life Assurance
Whole-of-Life Cover
Specified / Serious Illness Cover
Auto-Enrolment — My Future Fund
Occupational Pension Schemes
Personal Retirement Savings Account (PRSA)
Personal Pension Plan
Additional Voluntary Contributions (AVCs)
Personal Retirement Bonds (PRBs)
Self-Directed Pension Options
Pension Consolidation & Tracing Lost Pensions
Divorce Planning & Pension Adjustment Orders
Leaving Service Options Advice
Enhanced Transfer Value (ETV) Offer Analysis
Cross-Border Pension Transfers
Instant Access & Demand Deposit Accounts
Tracker Funds & Structured Products
Unit-Linked & Actively Managed Funds
Direct Equities & Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs)
Wills & Succession Planning
Inheritance Tax (CAT) Planning
Capital Gains Tax (CGT) — Timing & Disposal Strategy
Bare Trusts & Discretionary Trusts for Children
Charitable Bequests — Building a Meaningful Legacy
Section 73 Savings Plans
Section 72 Life Policies
Enduring Power of Attorney (EPA)
Wills & Succession Planning
Inheritance Tax (CAT) Planning
Capital Gains Tax (CGT) — Timing & Disposal Strategy
Bare Trusts & Discretionary Trusts for Children
Charitable Bequests — Building a Meaningful Legacy
Section 73 Savings Plans
Section 72 Life Policies
Enduring Power of Attorney (EPA)
Budget & Cashflow Planning
Emergency Fund — Your Financial Safety Net
Debt Management — Clearing the Right Debt First
Standalone Financial Planning Consultation
Claims Assistance
Vulnerable & Later-Life Customer Support
Redundancy & Severance Planning
Mortgage Protection
Term Life Assurance
Whole-of-Life Cover
Specified / Serious Illness Cover
Auto-Enrolment — My Future Fund
Occupational Pension Schemes
Personal Retirement Savings Account (PRSA)
Personal Pension Plan
Additional Voluntary Contributions (AVCs)
Personal Retirement Bonds (PRBs)
Self-Directed Pension Options
Pension Consolidation & Tracing Lost Pensions
Divorce Planning & Pension Adjustment Orders
Leaving Service Options Advice
Enhanced Transfer Value (ETV) Offer Analysis
Cross-Border Pension Transfers
Instant Access & Demand Deposit Accounts
Tracker Funds & Structured Products
Unit-Linked & Actively Managed Funds
Direct Equities & Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs)
Government & Corporate Bonds
Investment Property
Small Gift Allowance Savings Policies
The State Pension — Know What You’re Entitled To
Phased Retirement & De-Risking Strategies
Early Access to Your Pension in Ill-Health
Approved Retirement Fund (ARF)
ARF Imputed Distribution — Managing Your Drawdown
Annuity — Guaranteed Income for Life
Wills & Succession Planning
Inheritance Tax (CAT) Planning
Capital Gains Tax (CGT) — Timing & Disposal Strategy
Bare Trusts & Discretionary Trusts for Children
Charitable Bequests — Building a Meaningful Legacy
Section 73 Savings Plans
Section 72 Life Policies
Enduring Power of Attorney (EPA)
