Ms Rachael Ryan:

The banning of retirement ages in contracts is not something SIPTU sought, mindful of the fact that we have a diversity of workers within our membership which reflects workers within society. There is a strong view among some of our membership that they want a retention of a retirement age because they are not going to have the ability to work on. The difficulty that has occurred is that there has been what I would describe as a blunt instrument in this area, in that the ability to impose a retirement age has been given over to private sector employers. European law in the first instance says we cannot discriminate against somebody on the grounds of age. That would include imposing a retirement age on them. If I could, I will quote from the equality framework directive.

Notwithstanding Article 2(2), Member States may provide that differences of treatment on grounds of age shall not constitute discrimination, if, [importantly] within the context of national law, they are objectively and reasonably justified by a legitimate aim, including legitimate employment policy, labour market and vocational training objectives, and if the means of achieving that aim are appropriate and necessary.

What we have encountered in the private sector, in some employments, is that there is a blunt instrument given over to employers to impose a retirement age. As my colleague, Mr. Taft, referenced, within some employments, there can be a variety of jobs but, in our experience, there will not be a variety of retirement ages.

To be clear, we did not look for the abolition of retirement ages to try to balance that. The title of our submission to the commission reflects the need for flexibility within our pensions system. There are workers who will not be able to continue working past the State pension age, whether because they have no desire to do so or because they do not have the ability. We have talked about physically arduous work and its physical effect on workers. That needs to be balanced against the situation of workers who have given 30 or 40 years of service to an employer and have the ability to continue working but are told they have to leave because they have reached a particular age. The psychological effect can be strong for a worker in those circumstances. That is why we asked the commission and are asking this committee, as Deputy Ó Cuív referenced, to examine the provisions in legislation regarding mandatory retirement ages. It is our strong argument that such a review must include the employment and social policy considerations and should not be passed entirely over to private sector employment.

Regarding cases before the WRC, there are several workers, as I said, who have had their retirement age imposed on them. Coupled with the abolition of the transitionary State pension at the age of 65, this has meant that some people felt they were, in effect, caught between two stools or thrown on the scrapheap, whichever language is best to describe it. Within our union, we saw a sharp increase in the number of cases being put into the WRC because of that particular issue. I refer to the figures set out in our submission. In 2013, 52 cases were referred to the WRC on the ground that a person had been discriminated against because of his or her age. In 2014, that figure went up to 64. There are no data available for 2015 but the number increased in the following three years to 127, 161 and, in 2018, to 714. This sharp increase was because people were being caught in a situation where their retirement age was imposed on them and, in turn, the transitionary State pension was not available to them. That is why, as part of the suite of measures we set out in our submission to the pensions commission, we have asked for that area to be reviewed.