Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Independent)
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99. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the action he proposes to take to deal with the position of workers whose contract of employment expires on their sixty-fifth birthday, a year before the official State pension age; if he has any legislative proposals to allow for contracts to be extended at the request of workers in these circumstances, or to ban the making of long-term employment contracts that are not aligned with the State pension age; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18594/13]

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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There is no statutory retirement age for employees in the private sector in Ireland. A contract of employment will generally contain a retirement age but this is a matter of contract between the relevant parties.

As matters currently stand for those employees who are obliged by their contract of employment to retire at 65 years but will not receive the State pension until 66 years, the Department of Social Protection have indicated that, in terms of financial supports, social welfare benefits will continue to be available to the age of 66 for those who are contractually obliged to leave employment. Also, existing legislation provides that jobseekers whose benefit expires in their 65th year will continue to be paid benefit up until the age of 66, subject to the person having paid 156 or more qualifying contributions and satisfying the general scheme conditions.

The Department of Social Protection, which has lead responsibility for the State pension and pension age policy, is chairing an inter-Departmental Group on Working and Retirement issues, on which my Department is represented. That Department organised and chaired a Working and Retirement Forum in Croke Park last December, at which a range of stakeholder groups discussed, amongst other matters, issues related to the alignment of mandatory retirement age practices with the new State pension age. The Group is currently considering the issues highlighted at the Croke Park Forum and is preparing preliminary proposals in this regard.

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has made rulings in a series of age-discrimination cases concerning Directive 2000/78/EC, which prohibit discrimination in employment and occupation on various grounds, including age. The CJEU has clarified that mandatory retirement ages may be set down if, within the context of national law, they are objectively and reasonably justified by a legitimate social policy aim. Directive 2000/78/EC is principally given effect in national law by the Employment Equality Acts 1998 to 2011, which come within the remit of my colleague, the Minister for Justice, Mr Alan Shatter, T.D. With regard to the extension of contracts, the Employment Equality Acts currently permit an employer to offer a fixed-term contract to a person over the compulsory (contractual) retirement age for that employment.