Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The net cost is not small beans. It is €215 million a year every year. In no context could €215 million a year be called small beans. The purpose of successive governments in doing this was to recognise that we are living longer and many people want to work longer. I agree we need to change the practices and mindsets of some of our employers not to be pigeonholed to a retirement age of 65. We have done so in the public sector to allow people to work until they are 70 if that is what they want to do. That mindset needs to be brought to all of our private enterprises.

We are reaching full employment and I meet employers every week who find it difficult to get staff, which is why we are working on a returners programme and looking at people who are furthest to reach and reskilling and retraining them. We have large untapped talent pools, including a large number of people aged over 55. People need to change their mindsets as well as recognising that the SIF is under pressure. The demographic changes are decreasing the pensioner support rate. Nobody can ignore that regardless of how popular we want to be in keeping the pension age at 65.

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