Compulsory Retirement

My brother has worked for the same organisation for the last twenty years without a contract.Over the last few years the company has made some compulsory redundancies but he has been excluded.He is now heading towards his 65th birthday and his boss has indicated he will no longer need him after this time and will let him go! Can they do this?Has he any entitlements?

He should take legal advice.

Without a contract to say otherwise, he is entitled to work past 65 and would be protected by the unfair dismissals act.

Importer said:

He should take legal advice.

Without a contract to say otherwise, he is entitled to work past 65 and would be protected by the unfair dismissals act.

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It's not as simple as that. The pdf in this link below gives an idea of the things to be considered. Very few cases to date but this will be a hot topic soon as next year there will be no state pension for people retiring at 65.

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My mother retired recently from a semi state on her 65th birthday (can I say she wasn't a lifer so was on a post 1995 contract) - this was compulsory.

Importer is right......

There is no statutory retirement age in Ireland. Just because someone is 65, it doesnt mean that they have to retire unless specifically mentioned in their contract.

If there is no contract, or nothing in the contract to refer to a normal retirement age of 65, then any attempt to retire someone just because of age will run foul of the Unfair dismissals act.

This has nothing to do with entitlement to pensions as alluded to by Joe Robberts above. Its a completely different matter.

Dr.Debt said:

This has nothing to do with entitlement to pensions as alluded to by Joe Robberts above. Its a completely different matter.

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I didn't say it had anything to do with pensions. I stated that it will become more of an issue as up to now people would have been happy to retire at 65 and draw the pension. From 2014 they won't, and the logical avenue will be to say that they don't want to retire. The change in pension age is going to bring to the fore an issue that already exists.

If you read the article and some of the cases to date, no one will have a case under the Unfair Dismissals Acts.

It is early days with little case law in this area so nobody should take an absolute position or give absolute advice as both yourself and Importer have done. There will be no clear cut cases, regardless of what ones contract says or doesn't say about the retirement age.