Mandatory retirement at 65 - Age edict is no longer fair or sensible

EVEN the most ardent British republican might find it in their heart to wish Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh well in his autumn retirement from public duties. 

He is, after all, 95 years of age. Queen Elizabeth, his wife of 70 years, was 91 last month. Her son and heir to the throne Charles will reach 70 next year, a milestone that will put him five years beyond what is generally regarded as the official retirement age.

It is incongruous to compare the choreographed, pomp-and-ceremony lives of Windsors to the more humdrum reality of an everyday working life but the longevity of their service, their relentless flesh-pressing hardly modified by age, shows that the idea of obsolescence at a particular point is bizarre. That Queen Elizabeth, often far more influential than we might admit, made her most profound contribution to Anglo-Irish relations when she was 85 shows that the 65 cut-off point is entirely random. In today’s world, it seems anachronistic. That our President Michael D Higgins in 76 and our Minister for Finance Michael Noonan will be 74 later this month just confirms that.