ICTU: Move to raise retirement age hasty

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions has called the governments move raise the age of retirement hasty

Social Protection Minister Joan Burton announced plans today to increase the qualifying age for a state pension to 66 in 2014.

The move would affect approximately 14-thousand workers who may have been planning to retire at the age of 65 leaving them with no form of income for one year.

Joan Burton said they would be entitled to claim Jobseekers benefit for that period.

However, General Secretary of ICTU says the governments actions are too hasty and the move needs to be phased in over a longer period of time:

"This solution I think really is we have to phase this over a much longer period of time", he said

"we make calculations for instance which suggest that a person on a certain number of contributions at the moment will get a pension of €205 a week, that’s say someone on an average of 29 contributions, on the new regime, would be down to €196, so these are serious changes for people"