Cecilia Keaveney (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)
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Question 499: To ask the Minister for Finance the progress being made in bringing forward the introduction of an entitlement for people to choose to work beyond the current age of retirement in the Civil Service; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2370/06]

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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The Government has introduced legislation to allow certain civil servants work beyond the existing retirement age if they choose to do so. The Public Service Superannuation (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2004 and the Civil Service Regulation (Amendment) Act 2005 introduced a number of important changes in relation to the retirement age of civil servants. These changes mean that there is no longer a compulsory retirement age of 65 for "new entrants" who joined the Civil Service on or after 1 April 2004. The changes also raised the minimum pension age to 65 years for most "new entrants" to the Civil Service, with the exception of "new entrants" to the Prison Service, where different arrangements apply for operational reasons.

The removal of a compulsory retirement age as outlined above means that, over the medium to longer term, as more and more new staff are recruited as "new entrants" for the purposes of the new legislation, an increasing number of civil servants will have the right to work beyond the age of 65 if they choose to do so. Clearly, in time, all civil servants will be working under these terms and conditions. The legislative changes introduced also provide a mechanism by which existing civil servants can work beyond the retirement age if they wish. While a person who joined the public service before 1 April 2004 must retire at 65, they can be reappointed to the Civil Service as a "new entrant", provided there is a break in their service of 26 weeks.

At the moment there are no immediate proposals to change the current situation whereby staff recruited before 1 April 2004 must retire at 65 and those recruited on or after that date have no mandatory retirement age. However, we will keep this position under review.