Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The point I made about youth unemployment and youth employment was that if we extend people's working lives, 3,000 more people will stay in work each year, which means there will be 3,000 fewer vacancies at the other end. There is a consequence in terms of employment and unemployment, depending on the figures. That might have been one of the reasons the retirement age was changed from 70 to 65 years - that is, to try to create employment at the other end. Obviously, it does not create employment in the case of the public sector because of the public sector embargo, but in the private sector, companies will look to see if their employees have entitlements when they reach their retirement age and will extend working contracts for people if they are not entitled to a pension at 66.