LAST UPDATE | 19 Aug

THE MANDATORY RETIREMENT age for members of the Irish Defence Forces as well as members of the emergency services and Prison service has risen from 60 to 62 years old as of today, Tánaiste Micheál Martin has announced.

Martin characterised the raise as part of a broader plan to encourage recruitment and retention in the Defence Forces. The measure was initially announced back in March but comes into effect today. 

Today’s change comes after a previous raise to 60 years of age for all Defence Forces’ ranks whose mandatory retirement age had been under 60.

Announcing the change, the Tánaiste said that transforming and modernising the Defence Forces was “a key priority” for him. 

“This important change to the mandatory retirement age reflects modern society, allowing members who want to remain in service longer to do so,” Martin said.

He added that “it also facilitates the Defence Forces in their efforts to retain highly trained, skilled and experienced personnel”.

“Together with several other recruitment and retention initiatives – including the roll out of private healthcare, increased allowances and ongoing investment in infrastructure – this measure is a significant step aimed at stabilising the number of serving personnel while we simultaneously work towards recruiting new people into an exciting and rewarding career in the Defence Forces.”

Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces, Lieutenant General Seán Clancy, welcomed the change, saying he was “delighted”.

“Our members are our greatest asset and are central to everything we do. This is why the increase of mandatory retirement ages for all ranks has been a priority for me as Chief of Staff,” he said.

“It will act as an important retention measure, providing security of tenure for our serving members and support the transformation of our Defence Forces.”

The changes to retirement provisions “enhance the options available to uniformed public servants and allow them to remain in service for longer if they choose to do so,” a Department of Defence statement said. 

Lt Col Conor King of the Representative Association of Commissioned Officers (RACO) said that the measure will not solve the ongoing retention crisis in the military. 

“The increase in the retirement ages was brought in without any consultation with the associations, which appears to be the norm of late.

“While it will allow a small number of people to work for longer in the Defence Forces (DF) should they choose, it does nothing to change the completely inadequate pension terms for the over 50% of DF personnel who have joined since 2013, and who will not be able to afford to stay in the organisation in any case.

“Until this critical issue is addressed, along with the urgent implementation of the working time directive, then initiatives such as these are simply window dressing,” he said. 

Mark Keane of PDFORRA echoed those sentiments and said while welcoming the measure that it has not gone far enough. 

“We welcome this morning’s news, especially for those members on Post 94 contracts, but PDFORRA has been working on this for a long time and we cannot but think of the people who were forced out of their careers early,” Keane said. 

“During this process we were never engaged with on this measure since the initial announcement in March.” 

“There are issues with it,” he said.

“Whilst we welcome any measure that aids retention and recruitment, the representative bodies should be engaged with by the Department and Military. It is basic industrial relations.”

“It gives the majority of people security of tenure, they can plan for the future – before they would have faced dismissal in most cases at 56 – but there is an issue with long service, senior non-commissioned officers still not getting long service increments. 

“There still is no movement on the Commission on the Defence Forces measures such as lance corporals and the long service increments which are available to civil servants – if Micheál Martin can do this with the retirement age he can get those over the line immediately,” he said.  

With additional reporting from Niall O’Connor.