Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 21 April 2015
332. Deputy Róisín Shortall asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation with reference to the Employment Equality Acts, if he will outline the current legislation on compulsory retirement; if, in the absence of a contractual clause detailing an age of mandatory retirement, an employee may be forced to retire due to their age; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15581/15]
View answerAs the Deputy will appreciate, neither I, nor any of my Cabinet colleagues, can provide legal advice or an interpretation of the law and its application in relation to individual circumstances. 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 relevant parties. Consequently, there is absolutely no prohibition on employers and employees setting down a retirement age which goes beyond what might be considered the normal retirement age in society or the age at which the State pension is payable.
The upper age limit for bringing claims under the Unfair Dismissals Acts 1977 to 2007 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) Acts 2007.
However, 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 Equality Tribunal.
Responsibility for employment equality legislation rests with my colleague, the Minister for Justice and Equality, Frances Fitzgerald T.D. I am advised by my colleague that while Section 34(4) of the Employment Equality Acts provides that it is not unlawful for an employer to fix a compulsory retirement age for employees, the courts at national and European level, and the Equality Tribunal, have applied this having regard to the terms of Framework Directive 2000/78/EC as requiring that a compulsory retirement age must be objectively and reasonably justified by a legitimate aim including legitimate employment policy, labour market and vocational training objectives, and if the means of achieving that aim are appropriate and necessary.
