Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
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298. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation her plans to legislate to extend the retirement age; and if such changes would apply to community employment participants. [31326/16]

Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Apart from public sector employees, where certain statutory retirement ages may apply, there is no statutory retirement age for employees in Irish legislation. A contract of employment will generally contain a retirement age but this is a matter of contract between the parties.

The upper age limit for bringing claims under the Unfair Dismissals Acts was removed by a provision in the Equality Act 2004. It is now the case that a person of any age, when dismissed, may take a case under the Unfair Dismissals Acts unless she or he has reached the “normal retiring age for employees of the same employer in similar employment”, if one exists. In such circumstances, the burden of proof is on the employer to prove the normal retiring age. Furthermore, the upper age limit of 66 years for receipt of statutory redundancy payments was removed by the Protection of Employment (Exceptional Collective Redundancies and Related Matters) Act 2007.

As the issue that arises around compulsory retirement at a given age is whether this entails discrimination on age grounds, the more usual avenue of redress for employees compulsorily retired is to take a claim, under the Employment Equality Acts, to the Workplace Relations Commission. Responsibility for employment equality legislation rests with the Minister for Justice and Equality.

I understand from my colleague the Minister for Social Protection that the retirement age for all Community Employment (CE) Participants and Supervisors is the age they can avail of the State Pension, therefore they can work on CE up to the working day before the relevant birthday providing they meet the CE eligibility criteria. Participation on Community Employment has an upper age limit of the age at which the State Pension becomes available to that person, as per Section 7 of the Social Welfare and Pensions Act 2011, i.e.:

- 66 for those born before 1 January 1955.

- 67 for those born on or after 1 January 1955.

- 68 for those born on or after 1 January 1961.

The Deputy may be aware that an Inter-departmental Group (IDG), chaired by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER), was established by the Government earlier this year to consider policy around retirement age in both the public and private sectors. The IDG concluded its work during the summer and the Group’s report was published in August by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform. The IDG made a number of recommendations, one of which related to my specific area of responsibility. On foot of that recommendation I wrote to the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) to request them to prepare a Code of Practice under Section 42 of the Industrial Relations Act, 1990 around the issue of longer working, which should set out best industrial relations practice in managing the engagement between employers and employees in the run up to retirement, including requests to work beyond what would be considered the normal retirement age in the employment concerned.