LAST UPDATE | 7 Oct 2021

THE STATE PENSION age will rise by three months each year from 2028 until it hits 67 in 2031.

The government this evening published Pension Commission report.

One of the recommendations in the Pensions Commission report, which was submitted to Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys last month, is that the State pension age should rise in quarterly increments to 67 between 2028 and 2031. 

The report also recommends that it should then gradually increase to 68 by 2039.

The minister also aims to legislate to link contracts to the pension retirement age so as to ensure there is no gap between the time a person has to stop working and when their State pension kicks in.

Speaking last month on the report, the minster said “very difficult decisions are going to have to be made”. 

“At the end of the day what we want to do is protect the State pension so that young people who start a working life today will get the same benefits as those who retire today or tomorrow, and that’s really at the heart of the decisions that we need to make,” she said.

The current situation with Ireland’s State pension is not sustainable, she added.

The incremental rise in the pension age is the option favoured by government and being discussed by ministers this evening. A sub-committee will report back in six months on the way forward for this proposal.

The pension age became a major, and rather unexpected, political issue in last year’s general election after Fianna Fáil promised to postpone the rise to 67.

Fine Gael insisted on it going ahead, while Sinn Féin pledged to restore the pension age to 65. 

“The government must commit to restoring the right to retire at 65,” Sinn Féin spokesperson on Employment Louise O’Reilly said today. 

“This is a fundamental issue of dignity for workers. When they reach 65, after a lifetime of work, workers deserve the choice to retire, or to continue working in their jobs,” O’Reilly said.

“This is about choice – workers who wish to work beyond the age of 65 must be allowed to do so,” she said. 

With reporting by Hayley Halpin