As the Deputy will be aware, the extension of service beyond retirement age for civil servants, in certain limited circumstances, is provided for under Circular 13/1975.
The Circular notes that under Section 8.4 (1) of the Civil Service Regulation Act 1956, 65 years is the retiring age for certain Civil Servants. Provision is also made for circumstances in which an officer may be retained beyond his/her retirement age under conditions prescribed by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform.
These conditions have been varied from time to time and the conditions were consolidated in Circular 13/1975, and have been updated from time to time in respect of the financial amounts.
The 1975 Circular provides that
“An officer may be retired beyond the age of 65 years only:
- for the purpose of creating his/her pension (Increasing their pension by getting an extra increment (maximum 3 months),
- on grounds of public interest (e.g. special difficulty in replacing a person with unusual qualifications; need to allow time to finish a particularly important piece of work which cannot otherwise be done without serious inconvenience).
- on grounds of hardship (The hardship ground is deemed to exist where an officer, if retired, would have an income from all sources not exceeding the contributory old age social welfare benefit or if his income would not exceed 25% of his total annual remuneration on the date of normal retirement).
- on grounds of national service
The current rates used for determining cases on grounds of hardship are as follows;
State Pension (Non-Contributory) from 10 March 2017
|
State Pension (Non-Contributory)
|
Rate per week (maximum)
|
|
Personal rate, aged 66 and under 80
|
€227.00
|
|
Increase for a qualified adult aged under 66
|
€150.00
|
|
Increase for a qualified child
|
€29.80
|
The Deputy needs to bear in mind that Circular 13 of 1975 was never intended to provide a general exception to the retirement age of 65 years of age.
Departments have delegated sanction to apply the hardship rules to staff members who are due to retire at 65 years of age although they may seek advice from my Department.
Information readily available from my Department on retentions is only available for the period 2011 to 2017 and is as follows:
|
Year
|
No. of Applications
|
No. of Applicants retained
|
|
2011
|
8
|
8
|
|
2012
|
11
|
10
|
|
2013
|
16
|
16
|
|
2014
|
14
|
14
|
|
2015
|
23
|
21
|
|
2016
|
17
|
8
|
|
2017
|
5
|
1
|
However, the information may not be complete if departments/offices retained staff under the hardship rule.
The Deputy may be aware that there are a number of cases taken by individuals to the Workplace Relations Commission arguing that the current retirement age of 65 years is discriminatory on equality grounds. The advice available to me is that providing general exceptions to the retirement age of 65 years or other retirement ages could undermine the legal basis of these ages.
On foot of one of the recommendations of the Report of the Interdepartmental Group on Fuller Working Lives, my Department, with Public Service employers, was tasked to review the current statutory and operational considerations giving rise to barriers to extended participation in the public service workforce up to and including the current and planned age of entitlement to the Contributory State Pension. This review is currently underway and is expected to be completed by the end of the current quarter. Future policy in this area will be considered by Government following the outcome of this review.
