Dr. Enda Shanahan:

I thank the committee for the invitation to speak on the Employment Equality (Abolition of Mandatory Retirement Age) Bill 2014. I worked in the public hospital sector until I had to retire on reaching the age of 65 years, nearly two years ago. I did not wish to retire at the time as I was able and willing to continue working. There was no objective reason for my retirement. I was still rated fit for purpose by the Medical Council and was physically fit, as demonstrated by being able to run distances from 10 km to the marathon. Retirement was entirely because of a date in the calendar.

The forced retirement of experienced, able and willing workers is commonplace and represents an enormous waste of human resources. This is particularly acute in the public health sector where there is an ever-increasing demand driven by increasing numbers of people using services due to population increase, reduced numbers having private health insurance due to increased unemployment and premia, and an increasing number of older people who inevitably require health treatment. This situation is made worse by the great reduction in staff numbers in recent years and by difficulty in recruiting both doctors and nurses because of the terms and conditions offered by the Health Service Executive, HSE. As well as the loss of numbers, there has been a disproportionate loss of experienced workers.

If there were no mandatory retirement, many workers would work on which would alleviate skills shortages. There would also be retention of knowledge and experience built up over many years. It would be possible to provide mentoring to less experienced workers. These older workers would continue to contribute to society, both by their work and their taxes, and by either deferring or reducing pension payments, they would reduce demand on pension schemes.

The EU has legislation prohibiting discrimination on age grounds. However, the wording of the directive allows member states to interpret this more or less as they wish. The rulings of the Court of Justice of the European Union tend to favour the member states. There is no doubt that age discrimination is treated far less favourably than other types of discrimination. The UK recently changed its employment law to ensure there must be appropriate and objective grounds for mandatory retirement. The United States abolished mandatory retirement in the 1960s and it has continued to have the leading economy in the world. It must be doing something right.

One of the objections made against retaining older workers is that this would reduce employment prospects for the young, a point touched on by the Minister of State on Second Stage. This idea is known as the lump of labour fallacy, which has repeatedly been disproved by economists such as the Nobel laureate, Paul Krugman, as well as by exhaustive research performed over many years and covering many countries by such bodies as the National Bureau of Economic Research in the United States and the Institute for the Study of Labor, IZA, in Bonn. There are multiple publications in peer-reviewed journals which confirm it is a fallacy to suggest retaining older workers interferes with the employment of younger workers. All the published work on youth unemployment asserts that education, training and motivation are the keys to dealing with it.

It is also alleged that retaining older workers impedes the advancement of younger employees. In the real world, promotion is based on ability and work performance, not on seniority in an organisation. It is known that as most workers age, they wish to reduce stress and tend to stand aside from the most challenging types of work. They also have more interest in having a better work-life balance, a point which they have in common with workers with young children. The National Health Service, NHS, in the UK is a model for how to retain and value older workers and it is benefiting greatly by this. All over Europe, businesses are making changes to retain older workers by reducing hours, having flexible working times, working from home, changing benefits, changing workplaces to meet workers’ needs and ensuring older workers retain skills and feel valued.

Working past 65 years of age will not be for everyone. Those doing hard manual work, especially outdoors, and those in stressful occupations will probably welcome retirement. Those who have contracts with specified retirement ages should be allowed to retain these. However, those who are willing and able to work should be allowed in law to do so. There should be no age cleansing as a means to get rid of underperforming workers. There needs to be objective and independent assessment of suitability for work regardless of age. As someone who regularly runs with people of all ages and as a doctor of 42 years’ experience, I am aware that chronological age is not the same as biological age. One size does not fit all.

In Canada, for example, 12,128 physicians aged 65 and over are still working, comprising 15% of all doctors there. Another 25% of doctors are in the 55 to 64 age group. Most of them will continue to work after 65 because the Canadians deal with this by having an assessment of fitness to practice. They use a questionnaire for those who have been in practice for more than 35 years. If a warning flag is raised, such as in the case of a doctor who has been working for 35 years or more or a doctor who is working solo as a locum with not much contact with others, then there is a further review. It works well for the Canadians. Their experience of disasters in the health service is probably better than ours.

Any system for assessing fitness to continue in work should be objective and independent. Human nature is such that some colleagues may want to work and not to retire because they want to keep something that he or she has. Self-interest is very good at disguising itself as the public interest.