It makes no sense to force people to retire

This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column.

Michael Commane

Travelling from West Kerry to Tralee last week in commuter traffic to take a morning train to Dublin the heavens opened. It’s a long time since I have seen such a downpour. Indeed, it was so heavy even to take the few steps from the car to the station door meant getting wet.

A friend, who was on her way to work, drove me to the train and in the course of our conversation we began to talk about our jobs, working and when is the right time to retire. I was returning to work after sick leave. I’d been away from my job since late September and was naturally nervous, maybe anxious about returning, nevertheless glad to be going back. 

Half jokingly, half in earnest I said to the person driving me that I was tempted to hand in the towel and retire, then again what would I do if I retired. I enjoy my job and would greatly miss it. It’s such a privilege to be in a job that you like doing.

I remember when I was a child a neighbour saying to me that whatever job you do you can do it well and enjoy it.

Wasn’t it Marx and Engels who saw work as part of the ingredient of making us who we are?

I heard someone on radio last week say that the word retirement is an awful word and should be removed from our vocabulary. And even more poignantly a surgeon, who is mandated to retire next year, held out his hands, rhetorically asking me if they were going to be any different the day after he is due to retire. He is recognised as one of the best surgeons in his field.

Of course people who have worked all their lives should have the possibility of leaving their jobs in their mid to late 60s. 

But it sounds beyond crazy that people who are fit and capable should be forced to retired at a given age because that’s the way it’s always been done.

In a different context but with a startling relevance to the subject of retirement Pope Francis had this say at the closing of the recently held synod:  “That expression - ‘We have always done it that way’ - is poison for the life of the church.

Those who think this way, perhaps without even realising it, make the mistake of not taking seriously the times in which they are living.”

Francis is spot on.

My father worked until he was 82 in a nine to five job and enjoyed every minute of it. He would have been lost without his work. And my mother, who worked in the home, worked until she was in her late 70s. No one ever compelled her to retire.

On the one hand people are forced to retire at a given age, on the other hand the State is at present concerned how it is going to fund the pension pot. As society grows older and people live longer there will be more demands on the tax system. 

What happens if the small number of multinationals decide to pull out of Ireland. Last year they paid €22.6 billion in taxes to Revenue.

Well said Oscar Wilde: ‘With age comes wisdom’.