The Government’s public service reforms will now effectively standardise the maximum retirement age for most of the 300,000 people employed across the public service.
The new arrangements to allow staff to opt to work to age 70 will not, however apply to those in frontline services such as gardaí, Defence Force personnel, firefighters and prison officers who can already retire earlier than most others on accelerated pensions due to the nature of their work.
For most public servants, the age of compulsory retirement has been linked to when they were first recruited with various provisions set down in different pieces of legislation.
In the Civil Service, those employed before April 2004 had a compulsory retirement age of 65 under regulations dating back to the mid-1950s.
Public servants taken on after April 2004 either have a retirement age of 70 or have no compulsory retirement age.
The Government argues that a growing public service workforce will mean the option for staff to stay on beyond 65 will not lead to blockages in coveted promotion opportunities.
It also believes that the cost of paying State employees potentially for longer than originally anticipated will be offset by delays in having to make lump sum payments to which staff are eligible on retirement.
Private sector
However the Government’s new reforms for the public service has already led to questions about what it plans to do about workers in the private sector.
Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe announced interim arrangements which, pending new legislation, will allow public servants who reach the age of 65 and who wish to remain working, to retire and be rehired so that they remain in employment up to the State pension age, which is currently 66.
Mr Donohoe highlighted what he described as difficulties being experienced by public servants who are obliged to retire at 65 but who are not eligible for the contributory State pension until their 66th birthday.
Mr Donohoe said: “Many pensioners feel that they have earned their pension and should not have to ‘sign on’ as a jobseeker in order to receive a portion of it.”
Many private sector workers who are obliged to retire at 65 and who will not receive their State pensions until age 66 – or 67 from 2021 and 68 in 2028 – would share these views.
Code of practice
The advocacy group for older people, Age Action argued on Wednesday that the many thousands of workers in the private sector who will not benefit the public service reforms announced by the Government cannot be left behind.
The Minister said a proposed Workplace Relations Commission code of practice would examine this issue for the private sector.
Age Action contended that there is already proposed legislation currently stuck in the Oireachtas which would abolish mandatory retirement clauses, including in the private sector.
Without some initiative in this area there is a danger of a two-tier employment or retirement system emerging.