Ms Mary Murphy:

Yes, that is true. There are stipulations as to how mandatory retirement has to be gone through under the Employment Equality Acts; it is regulated. I think one will still find that a very large number of older persons still are being forced to mandatorily retire. It is the most common case taken to the Workplace Relations Commission under age grounds. A significant number of those cases are unsuccessful and the employer is being allowed to retire these employees. It is still certainly happening.

Unfortunately, the evidence is not there on the prevalence of mandatory retirement in Ireland. It is assumed to be prevalent and as we said, we estimate that around 4,000 people every year are affected just at the age of 65. There are going to be different ages but looking at the data we have on employment patterns, it would seem that this probably is what is happening at the age of 65, per year, but we do not know how prevalent it is.