Mandatory retirement ages for gardaí and prison officers to be raised

Mandatory retirement ages for gardaí, prison officers and Defence Forces personnel are to be increased under plans agreed at Cabinet on Tuesday.

The mandatory retirement age for gardaí and prison officers is being increased from 60 to 62.

The new mandatory retirement age for the Defence Forces will increase to 60 initially from the end of this month and then later to 62 once legislation on pensions is passed. The current mandatory retirement ages in the Defence Forces differ depending on rank, ranging between 47 and 58, though for ranks of colonel and above the retirement age is 60 and over.

Minister for Justice Helen McEntee said the changes would “help us to retain skills, the knowledge, the expertise that we know exists” and she added, “there is a demand for this”.

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She said that in the past three years alone she had extended the working age for 150 Garda members at the request of the Garda Commissioner.

“So really what we are doing here is putting into practice what is happening on the ground and it reflects the situation that we find ourselves in; it reflects the fact that people want to stay on in their chosen career for longer.” She said the new mandatory retirement age of 62 would be voluntary and would apply to all ranks.

Tánaiste and Minister for Defence Micheál Martin said the Government had committed to a record level of investment in defence but he acknowledged “a major recruitment and retention challenge” in the Defence Forces.

He said the plans to increase the mandatory retirement age to 60 from March 29th and later to 62 “will allow us to retain perfectly fit and highly trained and highly experienced personnel”.

He said the maximum recruitment age ceiling was also being increased from 29 to 39.

Mr Martin said many in the Defence Forces had been waiting for the announcement on increasing the retirement age adding: “if we can retain more in our Defence Forces, that will narrow the gap between inductions and those exiting on retirement”.

The planned increases to the mandatory retirement ages of uniformed public servants will be facilitated under the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform’s (DPER) fast accrual pension policy.

Under changes being made to the fast accrual policy framework, fast accruals will be facilitated until age 60; if an individual remains in employment beyond age 60, their pension accrual reverts from a fast accrual to a standard accrual basis.

A DPER statement said this policy would allow for increased mandatory retirement ages to be adopted in the uniformed services and aims to address operational need in an equitable and sustainable manner.

Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe is to prepare legislation to bring about the necessary changes.

“I fully support increases to the retirement ages in the uniformed services... People are living longer, healthier lives, and providing additional certainty in terms of retirement ages in the uniformed services is timely and appropriate,” Mr Donohoe said, adding “the department’s fast accrual policy will enable” the increase.

The Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces, Lieut Gen Seán Clancy, welcomed the increases in the retirement age and age cap for recruitment.

He said the increase in the mandatory retirement age had been “an absolute priority” for him.

A Defence Forces statement said it was the first increase in mandatory retirement ages for Defence Forces personnel since 1963 and it “better reflects the increase in healthy life expectancy we are all experiencing”.

The increase is also broadly in line with increases that have been implemented in other western military organisations.

Raco [the Representative Organisation for Commissioned Officers] also welcomed the increase in the retirement age for all ranks. “Our association has had a claim to increase the [mandatory retirement age] since 2018, and this will go some way, though not all the way, towards bridging the well-publicised gap between forced early retirement and access to a State pension,” it said.

Raco said it did have concerns about the increase of cadet induction to 39 “without any consultation whatsoever”.

Its statement said: “This will have implications for the viability of a career in the Defence Forces, when one considers the impact of the career average earnings model of superannuation, let alone the strict fitness and medical requirements imposed on new entrants to the organisation.”

Raco said it had written to the Department of Defence “seeking the evidence-based analysis, including implications underpinning this hugely significant increase from 26 to 39, as this has not been provided to our association, which it should have been according to our agreed rules of procedure.”

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