The Government has agreed to keep the State pension age at 66, and companies will not be allowed to force people to retire.
Last October, the Pension Commission recommended that the pension age should gradually rise to 67 before 2031, and 68 by 2039. But now the Taoiseach has strongly signalled this will not go ahead.
And he indicated people who work until they are 67 and older are in line for a higher rate of the State pension. Micheal Martin said: “The idea of flexibility is there in terms of when people take up their pension.
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“We had a meeting on this, the three party leaders, with the minister for social protection, public expenditure and health and broad agreement has been reached." Mr Martin indicated that people would be incentivised to retire later in life.
“Basically, the world is changing and people are working longer in their lives,” he said. "The new system has to reflect that.”
The Taoiseach, speaking to reporters during a tour of Asia, also confirmed that a mandatory retirement age will be a thing of the past and employers will no longer be able to tell an employee that they have to retire at 65. He said: “People have entitlements, employment contracts private sector employers will enter into employees.
“But this idea of retiring at 66 has to go. I think the market will dictate this but equally we want to make sure there’s no discrimination against people of that age because people are living longer, they’re healthier, quality of life is improving.
“It depends on the professions as well..the kind of work you’re doing. For example, certain employees can’t keep going to 70 because the work is just too difficult or too burdensome.”
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