State pension deferment age should be increased to 75 — committee
Mittee Which Years That Age Has Light 'in Should The 82 Of Old' Fact To Deferred 65 To State Said Oireachtas Can Expectancy Increased The Be The Increased Be From The To Life Pension 75
The State pension qualification age should be raised to 75 to account for the fact life expectancy in Ireland has increased, according to a new report.
That recommendation from the Oireachtas social protection committee would put the cut off age for the State pension at five years more than the 70 recommended by the State Commission on Pensions.
That age of 70 was transposed into the draft Social Welfare (Amendment) Bill 2023 considered by the Oireachtas committee for pre-legislative scrutiny in August and September of this year.
In its report on the bill, the Oireachtas committee said the age to which the State pension can be deferred should be increased to 75 “in light of the fact that life expectancy has increased from 65 to 82 years old”.
The new bill in its draft guise would have seen that age increase from 66 to 70 to allow people to defer accessing the pension to a later stage to keep working and to access an enhanced rate of the pension when it is eventually drawn down.
The committee said that enhanced rate should be maintained so “the enhanced pension would keep increasing until the individual starts drawing down their pension or reaches 75”.
The State pension age is currently 66. During the last general election campaign, Sinn Féin said it would reduce the age back to 65, in contrast with prevailing Government opinion that the age needs to increase.
The idea of raising the general pension age has its roots in the fact that Ireland’s population is ageing, meaning a far greater number of people will be entitled to claim the State pension in the coming years.
The new bill would see the pension age remain at 66 and allow those deferring accessing the pension and who had turned 66 after January 1 of next year access an enhanced rate of remuneration dependent on the age at which they deferred until, with a different rate paid for ages 67, 68, 69, and 70.
Raising the deferral age to 75 would benefit people with “a mixed contribution record” — those who have not worked a PAYE job consistently, who are “in good health” and wish to work beyond their 70th birthday, the committee said.
The Pensions Commission had also recommended the official State pension age, frozen at 66 pending the commission’s findings, be increased incrementally by three months each year commencing in 2028 — thus reaching 67 in 2031, with further increases of three months every second year leading to a pension age of 68 in 2039.
That recommendation did not manifest in the new bill however.