The private sector is to be encouraged to allow workers to continue in employment beyond the normal retirement age of 65, Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe has said.
Mr Donohoe said many people wanted to work longer and enjoy more productive later years. He referred to recent regulations for public sector workers that allow civil servants recruited since 2013 to a retirement date at age 70.
For those who do not want to go on working beyond 65, Mr Donohoe said the option of applying for job-seeker’s allowance would be available, before they get their entitlements under the State pension scheme.
He was launching the report of the Interdepartmental Group on Fuller Working Lives.
Mr Donohoe said if increases in the age at which people qualify for State pensions are not matched by longer working lives, future incomes for retirees will become an increasingly pressing issue.
Expenditure on State pensions and is set to rise from €7billion in 2016 to €8.7 billion in 2026 assuming no rate changes, he said. These figures also allow for the fact that the age of eligibility for State pensions will rise from 66 to 67 years in 2021 and to 68 years in 2028.
The interdepartmental group identified a number of measures which Mr Donohoe said will now be implemented. These include asking employers to raise awareness among the private sector workers of the potential lacuna in their incomes at current retirement ages.
The Department of Public Expenditure will review, with public service employers, the “barriers to extended participation in the public service workforce, up to the age of entitlement to a the State pension.”
In addition the Department of Jobs is to ask the Workplace Relations Commission to prepare a new code of practice around the issue of longer working.
