State `requires' immigrants and older workers

If the Republic is to continue to enjoy the fruits of the technology revolution, it will have to adopt a tolerant attitude to immigrants and rely more on the over-55s to solve the skills crisis, the Irish Association of Pension Funds (IAPF) heard at its annual conference yesterday.

Mr Shane Whelan, deputy investment director at Friends First, said that labour, not capital, was the scarce resource in most developed economies in the 21st century.

"Immigrants will be required to provide even essential social support for an ageing population," he told the conference, entitled "A new Millennium - a new social order". "These workers, whose labour will provide a comfortable retirement for us, will not be attracted to Ireland if the State and public adopt an intolerant attitude," he said.

In addition to immigrants, the Republic would have to look to the over-55s to help solve the skills crisis, the conference was told.

"It doesn't seem sensible from a personal or economic perspective to have people retiring with decades of free time on their hands," said Ms Aisling Kennedy, consultant actuary with Mercer. "Flexible, part-time work would be an attractive option for many over-55s from both a social and financial viewpoint."

This view was echoed by Senator Joe O'Toole, general secretary of the INTO and vice-president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), who said that telling people they had to retire at 65 was both "outmoded and unnecessary".

He called for change to pension arrangements and work paradigms to reflect societal shifts.

An important development would be the introduction of "bridge" jobs, where employees could opt for a reduced working time in the years prior to full retirement.

He called for greater flexibility in pension schemes to reflect the fundamentally different career shifts experienced in the course of a working life.

"We must see pension plans as merely deferred investment reward, where regulation is minimal and should merely require that the retiree cannot spend the investment in a manner which does not make adequate provision for his or her future," Senator O'Toole said.