Cecilia Keaveney (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)
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Question 125: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the progress being made in relation to bringing forward the introduction of an entitlement for people to choose to work beyond the current age of retirement; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3637/06]

Tony Killeen (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Employment rights legislation, with the exception of the Redundancy Payments Acts 1967 to 2003, does not impose a retirement age on employees. Such legislation describes an employee as "a person of any age who has entered into or works under (or, where the employment has ceased, entered into or worked under) a contract of employment". However, in some employments, a "normal retirement age" exists for that employment only.

In relation to redundancy, the redundancy review group report of 2002, which produced recommendations for the updating of statutory redundancy legislation, considered that increasing the upper age limit of 66 for redundancy qualification purposes would not be a priority in the short- term if resources were scarce. The group recognised however that the labour force is becoming older and that participation in the labour force by older people, if desired, should be facilitated. Accordingly, it was recommended that consideration should be given in the medium term to removing the age cap or raising the age cap in conjunction with similar changes to unfair dismissals, equality and social and family legislation as recommended by the Equality Authority. In this connection, the upper age limit of 66 for bringing claims under the Unfair Dismissals Acts 1977 to 2001 was removed by the Equality Act 2004. The effect of this amendment is that the Unfair Dismissals Acts will not apply to dismissed employees who, at the date of their dismissal, had reached the normal retirement age in that employment, that is, if it is the policy in an employment to retire employees at a certain age, an employee who has reached that age is excluded from taking a case under the Unfair Dismissals Acts 1977 to 2001.