Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am covering for my colleague, our health spokesperson, Senator Colm Burke, who is attending to matters in Cork this evening. I welcome the Minister to the House and I welcome this Bill. I also heard Senator Crown explain this Bill on "Morning Ireland" this morning and I listened very attentively to his contribution. I could not but agree with him: it makes absolute sense. I am happy to inform the House that the Government will not be opposing this Bill. It will allow it go to Committee Stage, where it can be teased out in more detail.

It is a common-sense approach. We are dealing with a population that is aging significantly due to developments in the area of health, lifestyle choices and so on. People are living much longer than they would have been over the decades, and in future decades they will hopefully live longer still. The age at which people can claim the contributory old age pension will go up in the next four or five years from 66 to 68. The logical extension of this thinking is that we look outside the box and examine alternative ways of retaining expertise, particularly in the health service. As Senator Crown has rightly pointed out, the type of knowledge that some of our top consultants have is internationally required. Many eye surgeons and cancer experts lecture internationally on a regular basis. Their depth of knowledge and research are sought after all over the world, so why should these people be forced into retirement at 65? It is illogical.

This is something we would not necessarily think about on a daily basis, which is why people like Senator Crown make such a valued contribution to this House. As a result of his expertise and the fact that he works in the health service on a daily basis and has dedicated his career to this, he sees it at first hand. That is how the expertise he has brought to this House as an independent Senator can contribute to the legislative process.

A few years ago, an assistant Garda Commissioner, Martin Donnellan, took a case to the High Court on the basis that he was forced to retire from the Garda. I do not believe he was successful in that case, so if we were to introduce this legislation we should look at rolling it out to other aspects of life and other occupations. At the time, the case was made that certain detectives had built up enormous expertise in the investigation of crime in a particular area, whether it be drug-related, smuggling, or any of the various facets of crime. Why should that expertise be lost to the system if we are dealing with a perfectly healthy individual who has amassed that forensic knowledge over many years? The debate that will result from this Bill could happen in many other areas of the public service, and I would encourage this. I look forward to following the Bill in consultation with my colleagues and Senator Burke. I also look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say, because this is an innovative way of retaining expertise in the public service and in the health service.