Deirdre leads EY Law Ireland’s employment law team, advising clients on day-to-day employment law queries arising at every stage of the employment relationship. She also advises on strategic workforce planning, workforce restructuring and HR transactions providing straightforward, practical solutions to her clients.
Deirdre is a longstanding member of the Law Society of Ireland’s Employment and Equality Committee. In January 2025, she was appointed to the Employment Law Review Group (ELRG) by the Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment to support with the ELRG’s function to monitor, review and advise on all aspects of employment and redundancy law in Ireland, with a specific focus on promoting good workplace relations and simplifying the operation of employment and redundancy law.
Combining employment law expertise with a commercial and solution-driven focus, Deirdre is highly regarded by clients. She is ranked by Chambers and Partners (Europe Edition) and Legal 500 for her work in employment law.
Brief
In this EY Law Insight, we consider the challenges surrounding mandatory retirement ages following recent decisions in the private and public sector.
The law
There is no statutory retirement age in Ireland in the private sector. The Employment Equality legislation permits employers to set a contractual retirement age, but the employer must show that the retirement age can be objectively and reasonably justified by a legitimate aim and the means of achieving that aim are proportionate and necessary. This is easier said than done, and over the years, we have seen many cases challenging an employer’s “objectively justified” retirement age.
By way of example, RTE sought to rely on the widely-used defence of “intergenerational fairness” in retiring one of
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