Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I draw Mr. Gaynor’s attention to a letter I referred to earlier from the office of the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. It asserts:

While Section 34(4) of the Employment Equality Acts provides that it is not unlawful for an employer to fix a compulsory retirement age for employees, the Equality Tribunal has, in recent decisions, interpreted those Acts in the light of rulings of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) cases concerning Framework Directive 2000/78/EC, which prohibits discrimination in employment and occupation on various grounds, including age. In those cases, the CJEU has found that terminating someone’s employment on the basis of their chronological age is considered as direct discrimination under EU law.

I would like to hear Mr. Gaynor's response to that. It raises two questions. If the grounds are so solid then why was legislation not introduced to prevent an employer from refusing to employ somebody? Why leave it to the employer?