Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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194. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation her plans to introduce legislation to prohibit private sector employers from forcing persons to retire on age grounds under the age for the State pension; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [28645/17]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, 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.

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 in 2016 to consider policy around retirement age in both the public and private sectors. The IDG's report was published in August 2016. The Report recorded that the recently enacted Equality (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 2015 amends Irish equality legislation to bring it into line with the judgments of the CJEU interpreting the relevant provisions in EU Directives, as follows:

Section 34 of the Act of 1998 is amended by the substitution of the following subsection for subsection (4):

“(4) Without prejudice to subsection (3), it shall not constitute discrimination on the age ground to fix different ages for the retirement (whether voluntarily or compulsorily) of employees or any class or description of employees if—

(a) it is objectively and reasonably justified by a legitimate aim, and

(b) the means of achieving that aim are appropriate and necessary.”.

The amended legislation sets out the grounds on which employers will have to justify the setting of particular retirement ages, such grounds being underpinned by the provisions of the Employment Equality Directive.

The Report points to examples of objective justification including:

- To create opportunities in the labour market for those looking for work

- To encourage recruitment and promotion of young people and prevent possible disputes on the fitness of employees to work beyond a certain age

- To ensure better distribution of work between the generations

- To ensure quality of service provision and address an age imbalance within a workforce

- To ensure motivation and dynamism through the increased prospect of promotion due to senior staff being retired.

The IDG made a number of recommendations, one of which related to my specific area of responsibility. On foot of that recommendation a Ministerial request issued 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 working longer, 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. Work by the WRC on preparing the Code in consultation with relevant stakeholders is at an advanced stage.