Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. It is an honour to second Senator Crown's Bill. To many people retirement is an alien concept. They rely on the income from work to sustain themselves and their families. Work defines them in their own mind and gives them their role in society. Some fear retirement and a loss of status. Where such people have skills which are not easily replaced, as Senator Crown has just been telling the House, we have the loss of their service to society plus pensions costs. Paying people through pensions not to work is a cost, and denying the public the services of those required to retire is a greater cost.

The Bill assumes an individual may be certified unfit to work as a result of a medical condition by a registered medical practitioner. It provides for an appeal process. Life expectancy in Ireland has increased by an estimated 15 years, as Senator Crown stated, since 1950 to 81 years. A girl born today will probably reach 100. Were she to take up the study of medicine it would mean 35 years of study, 30 years of showing that great knowledge to society as a whole and 35 years of compulsory retirement, as Senator Crown has said. Death rates have fallen very rapidly since 2000, and life expectancy is growing faster in Ireland than the rest of Europe with reductions in car accidents and smoking being cited as the likely causes.

There is no general compulsory retirement age in Ireland aside from some fairly limited industries and professions. To this degree, the advisers who told Senator Crown he was pushing an open door are correct. Unless it is set out in a contract of employment as well as accepted by custom and practice in that workplace, people cannot be forced to retire. The Equality Tribunal asked employers to justify objectively compulsory retirement and the examples of these objective justifications included opening opportunities in the labour market for persons seeking employment. Senator Crown has shown us this is not happening as some posts are never applied for and in many cases there are very few applications. The justifications also included establishing a balanced age structure. In the type of medicine Senator Crown described, experience is absolutely vital and is something one gains more of every day. It is not acquired by just taking courses in university, but through carrying out vital complicated operations. Another justification was encouraging the recruitment of young people and preventing disputes about the performance of older people. The performance aspects of older people are covered by Senator Crown's Bill. Other justifications are intergenerational fairness, preserving the dignity of older workers, which Senator Crown has covered, and motivation and dynamism through increased promotion prospects. Dynamism is not there because of the difficulty Senator Crown has mentioned. Nobody is being excluded from this as younger people do not apply. Another justification is to ensure vacancies become available to encourage recruitment and the promotion of younger people. We will need to do this anyway. There was also the desire to avoid capability issues and health and safety concerns for the public. Health and safety is promoted by Senator Crown's Bill because the experience of the people being forced to retire exceeds those who might be a locum. Literature by Barry Walsh at McDonald Solicitors and Reddy Charlton Solicitors mentions these factors. They are adequately responded to in Senator Crown's Bill.

Case law includes a case in the High Court in 2008 when the assistant Garda commissioner did not wish to retire at 60 but was compelled to do so because motivation and dynamism was needed through the increased prospects of promotion. These factors do not apply here. Senator Crown has identified an area where there is there a dearth of capabilities to replace those compelled to retire. No young persons apply to take up such posts. Patients are unfairly treated because of the specific skills shortages. The Bill accommodates the issue of capability and competence. In the absence of a general compulsory retirement age in Ireland, the sectoral approach in the Bill is the correct one.The proposer has a record of learning and experience in the profession covered in this Bill. Skills are acquired over many decades of postgraduate learning, networking with leading experts in the world and other experience. This is lost by enforcing early retirement.

Understandings of career and learning development change over time. For instance, maybe the 2008 decision about the senior police officer might not apply. Today we might reflect changes in policing methods in terms of greater use of scientific know-how, cold case groups, improvements in Garda training and perhaps less emphasis on physical fitness standards. Those factors might change in a particular case. Safety standards were cited in the case of electricity workers, as older workers might place customers at risk. That does not apply here as the older workers Senator Crown has described to the House are, in fact, safer. We could check insurance records and malpractice records if that proposition were doubted. The case is made here that experienced, highly qualified medical practitioners are a lower risk prospect than staff recruited on short-term contracts in a labour market with few applicants and heavy migration out of the country. I commend the Bill to the House.