Chris Dooley
in Galway
Incentives to encourage early retirement are no longer sustainable as a social policy, the EU Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs said yesterday.
Speaking in Galway after a meeting between EU ministers and social partnership groups, Ms Anna Diamantopoulou said early retirement had been a major labour market and social policy instrument in the past.
This could no longer be the case for three reasons: social security and pension schemes would become unsustainable, the EU would face labour market shortages by 2010 and the life expectancy of EU citizens had increased by seven years.
The problem posed by fewer workers supporting more, longer-living pensioners was one of the key issues addressed at yesterday's meeting, chaired by the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Ms Coughlan, and the Minister of State for Labour Affairs, Mr Frank Fahey.
Ministers from the Netherlands and Luxembourg which, as the next two countries to hold the EU presidency make up the "troika" with Ireland, attended the meeting at the Corrib Great Southern Hotel.
The presence of European employer and union groups and other NGOs ensured that Ireland's EU presidency started in "a very Irish way", said Ms Diamantopoulou, referring to the long-established social partnership arrangements in the Republic.
More than 30 employment and social affairs ministers from the 15 EU countries and 10 accession states will attend an informal council meeting at the same venue today, the first major "set piece" event of the Irish presidency.
Both days of talks are about how to strike a balance between good social security systems and the need to provide incentives for people to take up work.
Concern that the targeted outcomes may be getting that balance wrong was expressed by the general secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation, Mr John Monks, who said the background documents for the meeting concentrated too much on trying to "lever" the unemployed into work.
"There is an underlying assumption evident that the unemployed are reluctant to work and that means must be found through the social security systems to put pressure on them to take any available jobs.
"There is a whiff of American style 'workfare' principles in all this," he said.
Ms Coughlan, however, said agreement had been reached at the meeting that there was a need to focus on the "broader inactive population", and not just those categorised as unemployed.
There was a need, in this regard, to develop specific policies targeted towards people such as lone parents and those with disabilities.
Employer groups who attended the meeting had concerns of their own. The IBEC director general, Mr Turlough O'Sullivan, said employment creation was being hindered by the complexity of labour rules and regulations and "overly protective" terms and conditions.
However, Mr Fahey said it had been recognised that flexibility was no longer just an employers' interest. "It also serves the interests of workers, helping them to combine work with caring roles or education and allowing them to lead their preferred lifestyles," he said.