Mr. Henry Gaynor:

I hope the pension age will revert to 65 for people already in the system, and that the Government will sit down with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, ICTU, and other interested parties to thrash out a deal. The deal must be the same for everyone, whether the cut-off date is 1995, 2004 or 2012. I am not in a position to say what the whole country wants. The Government must also legislate on the basis that if it raises the pension age the employer has no choice but to keep one on.

As the Chairman said, one can take a case to the Equality Tribunal but it takes approximately two years for it to hear a case. I have come across two pieces of information, one on a website on employment law set up by a barrister, which cites cases heard by the European Court of Justice. If an employer can show that he needs to let people go at 65 he can do so. The court will accept this if the employer has younger workers coming in whom he wants to promote. It is a grey area. One cannot be sure of winning a case. If it takes two years, the time will have passed.