New Code of Practice on Longer Working
Case 1
Paul Quigley, a highly regarded GP in addiction services in the North Dublin HSE was recently granted an injunction by the High Court to stop the HSE from forcing him to retire. His lawyers are claiming the forced retirement amounts to age discrimination.
Case 2
A WRC adjudicator recently ruled that Susan Devereaux, who was forced to retire from her job, should be re-instated in her role with Pdforra, as the employer had failed to ‘objectively justify’ its reasons for dismissing her when she reached the age of 60.
Case 3
A Bookkeeper who was ‘retired’ by her employer on reaching the age of 66 has been awarded €12,000 in an age discrimination case she took against her employer.
These are just a few of the cases relating to forced retirement that has come up in the courts over the last few months. They have brought attention to the fact that these now ‘retired’ workers were sometimes unable to claim the State pension as they may not have reached the eligible age to do so. At the moment private sector workers in Ireland can start to receive the State pension at the age of 66, this will rise to 67 in 2021 and again to 68 in 2028.
The Workplace Relations Commission has now published a Code of Practice, Industrial Relations Act 1990 (Code of Practice on Longer Working)(Declaration) Order 2017. The Code can now be used to help employer’s when dealing with retirement and requests to work beyond the retirement age. Although not legally binding, any employer who does not follow the guidelines will need to be able to justify the reasoning behind it.
On publishing the new Code of Practice, the WRC has set out what should be taken into consideration when it comes to retirement in the workplace:
Utilising the skills, abilities and experience of older workers
- Draw on benefits of older workers and utilize through training and knowledge sharing with younger members of staff.
- Train all management about age diversity and the benefits of such diversity in the workplace
Objective Justification
- If a mandatory retirement age is set within a company, the employer must be able to ‘objectively justify’ the reason for it, examples may include health and safety, intergenerational fairness.
Set out a step by step ‘Retirement Process’
- Set timelines and give adequate notice prior to retirement date
- Explore transitional arrangements like flexible working, alternative roles up to date of retirement.
Requests to work longer
- Need to be seen to be taken into consideration
- Procedures set in place for acceptance and refusal of requests to work after set retirement age.
As a whole we are all living longer so it seems only natural that we would also be allowed to work for longer? This new Code of Practice will be very important going forward for Irish Employment legislation and employer’s alike.
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