Heather Humphreys refuses to say if she will delay increasing pension age to 67

Minister for Social Protection Heather Humphreys says as the report from the Pensions Commission needs to be carefully considered by the Government. Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins

The Minister for Social Protection has refused to be drawn on whether she will delay increasing the pension age to 67 incrementally, as recommended by an independent commission.

Chair of the Pensions Commission Josephine Feehily and the members submitted their final report to Minister Humphreys last week, recommending the State pension age rise in quarterly increments to 67 between 2028 and 2031, before gradually increasing to 68 by 2039.

Ms Humphreys says as the report is "several hundreds of pages"  it needs to be carefully considered by the Government.

"There's a number of recommendations in the report, some of which has been leaked in the last week," she said.

"I really don't think it would be appropriate of me to go into the details of the report until I bring it to my government colleagues."

My plan is I would bring it to government, in the next few weeks. I will then publish the report, but as we all know, this is an issue that we have to deal with.

The minister said she was anxious to proceed as quickly as possible.

"I'm not going to delay anything here. There's a host of recommendations in this and the bottom line is that the current system is not sustainable. we have to consider the report, and we're going to have to come up with a solution. So we will have to take action. 

And I know that there's going to be some difficult decisions, but that's what the government has to do."

Ms Humphreys says she will entering negotiations with the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Michael McGrath in the coming days to prepare for October's budget.

"My focus is on protecting the most vulnerable, and protecting our pensioners," she said.