Professor Alan Barrett:

I feel really at home discussing this here. Essentially, my colleague, Dr. Doorley, carried out a purely mechanical exercise in the context of people often talking about the public pension system being unsustainable in the context of ageing. Dr. Karina Doorley was asking, as others have asked before, what kind of policy mix would get us to a stage where there would be a sustainable future for public pensions. One route to this would be to simply raise the pension age. Whether or not it is a good idea, the crucial point, about which people in this area increasingly talk, is that it is all about offering people choice. It was quite a long time ago that the notion of 65 being the retirement age became ingrained. The health status of 65 year olds has changed enormously. The Chair linked her question to health. The simple truth is that many 65 year olds are now perfectly capable of continuing to work in certain circumstances.

There are other 65 year olds who are not capable of doing so. Obviously, occupations differ enormously so the trick and the policy prescription here need to be around facilitating people if they want to work longer because there is a clear potential benefit for the economy and the individuals but it is all about choice and facilitating people.

In respect of cross-departmental approaches to the issue of ageing, there is a common set of figures-----