State Pension age should be 65 – Rose Conway-Walsh TD
11 April 2025
Sinn Féin spokesperson on Enterprise, Tourism and Employment Rose Conway-Walsh TD has urged the government to lower the age at which people can access their state pension.
Speaking in the Dáil on Tuesday evening the Mayo Sinn Féin TD said:
“Today the government has moved legislation which would prohibit employers setting a mandatory retirement age for workers.
“While I welcome this long overdue piece of legislation, it does not go far enough to protect older workers, I am calling on the government to reduce the age at which citizens can access their state pension to 65 years old.
“People have not forgotten that this was abolished by the Fine Gael-Labour Party Government in 2013 and my belief is that Fine Gael may have its sights on even higher age limits in the future as we all know they planned on raising it to 68 by the year 2028.
“What a horrendous thought for people in manual jobs in particular, I’m thinking of the carpenters and brickies of course, and also the service staff in hotels making heavy beds, the hairdressers on their feet all day and the kitchen staff.
“Unfortunately this current government has set its face against lowering the age to 65 which is long standing Sinn Féin policy.
“At 65 people have a lifetime of work under their belts, they should be able to access their state pension.
“The pension age in Estonia is 64 years and 3 months, in Bulgaria for women it is 62 years and 64 years and 6 months for men, in France 62 years, in Austria and Poland women can retire at age 60, Slovakia 63 and many other countries have flexible arrangements.
“Many of these countries do not have the economic prosperity which the government so often boasts of. But what is prosperity in a state if it is not used for the betterment of its citizens?
“I am taking this opportunity to call on the government to enact this legislation but not to shirk its responsibilities in respect of older workers and lower the age at which people can access their state pension to 65 which is what Sinn Féin would do.”
