{"id":505060,"date":"2026-06-17T23:09:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T23:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/505060\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T23:09:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T23:09:08","slug":"law-intended-to-allow-people-work-until-66th-birthday-to-come-into-effect-on-june-29th-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/505060\/","title":{"rendered":"Law intended to allow people work until 66th birthday to come into effect on June 29th \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Legislation intended to allow thousands of employees to stay in their jobs for an extra year before retiring is to come into effect on June 29th, the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment<\/a> (Dete) has confirmed.<\/p>\n

The Employment (Contractual Retirement Ages) Act 2025 will allow employees in companies that have a contractual retirement age that is below the State pension age of 66 to inform their employer they do not consent to retiring.<\/p>\n

The code of practice intended to set out the mechanics of how the new system will work has also been published and any employer who does not provide a reasoned response to an employee suggesting they want to stay will be guilty of an offence with the possibility of a fine of up to \u20ac5,000.<\/p>\n

In instances where the retirement is 66 or above \u2013 it has been 70 in many public-sector and Civil Service roles since 2018 \u2013 the right to seek to stay on longer does not apply and it does not affect those roles, such as the Defence Forces<\/a> or An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na<\/a>, in which the retirement age is set by law.<\/p>\n

The Act should mean, however, that thousands of workers currently forced to retire from their jobs at 65, a year before they become eligible for the State pension, will have the option of being able to work for the additional year although there will be no requirement to do so.<\/p>\n

The new rules require that they inform their employer of their intention not to retire at least three months but no more than a year in advance of their scheduled retirement age.<\/p>\n

The right to do so won\u2019t be automatic and there will be circumstances in which the employer will be able to argue it is working to achieve legitimate aims by enforcing a retirement policy in their organisation but they will not have to do so in relation to the individual rather than the wider grade or role.<\/p>\n

The general expectation is that the legislation will have a significant impact, benefiting many workers for whom the drop in income after retirement represents a major challenge.<\/p>\n

Welcoming the confirmation of a date for the legislation to come into effect, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions<\/a> (Ictu) said the new law \u201cstrengthens workers\u2019 right to keep their job for employees with a mandatory retirement age below 66 in their employment contract\u201d. It said it did not impact, however, on the existing right to claim that forced retirement beyond 66 is discriminatory on grounds of age under the Employment Equality Acts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a big and growing appetite among workers to continue working beyond the traditional retirement age of 65,\u201d said Ictu general secretary Owen Reidy.<\/p>\n

\u201cRestricting the use of mandatory retirement ages is good for workers, business and the economy. It is essential in a tight labour market, an ageing population and for the future sustainability of the public finances. It recognises differences between workers and the jobs they do, compared to the blunt instrument of pushing up the pension age for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Legislation intended to allow thousands of employees to stay in their jobs for an extra year before retiring…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[45,72,13308,61,60,4106,1962],"class_list":["post-505060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-an-garda-siochana","tag-business","tag-defence-forces","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-irish-congress-of-trade-unions-ictu","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}