Bernard Allen (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)
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Question 124: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the steps he will take to fulfil the commitment in the Agreed Programme for Government to introduce phased retirement which allows workers a greater say in their retirement age; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26173/07]

Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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It important that those who wish to continue in employment after normal retirement age should, as far as is possible, be facilitated and supported. Longer working can play an important role in ensuring that the pensions system is sustainable in the future and can be beneficial to the individual.

The Green Paper on Pensions includes proposals for the examination of issues surrounding retirement age and the barriers faced by older workers who wish to remain in employment.

In the context of the Green Paper on Pensions and the Agreed Programme for Government, I will be considering how to introduce flexibilities into the social welfare pensions and social insurance systems to encourage and facilitate longer working. These include options such as allowing people to receive a higher rate of payment if they defer claiming pension and the question of making work after normal retirement age insurable for pension purposes.

Changes to social welfare pensions represent only one aspect of the responses which will be needed in this area. Both employer and employee attitudes in relation to longer working will have to change in order for changes in the pension area to impact. While neither employment nor equality law impose a compulsory retirement age, employers may decide on one for particular employments. In future, at the workplace level, employers must seek to retain older employees by creating the working conditions which will make longer working both attractive and feasible for them if change is to be achieved.