asked the Minister for the Public Service if he is considering proposals for offering a more attractive early retirement package to public servants so as to allow more recruitment in the public service.

The question of reducing the current maximum retirement age of 65 in the public service to age 60 has already been considered in the course of examining job creation measures generally. However, the extra costs of immediate payment of pensions plus lump sums which would arise — without taking into account any additional incentives — are such as to make the matter prohibitive at this time.

Does the Minister have a costing? Presumably if it has been found to be prohibitive the Minister must have a cost per job or some sort of financial analysis to show that. It seems that there are many people in the Public Service over the age of 60 who would be glad to go on early retirement if they were to get a sum more or less in line with what they would get at 65.

These figures are interesting and instructive. The question of introducing early retirement as a means of job stimulation is often advanced and was advanced by Deputy Ahern by way of a parlimentary question almost a year ago. The difficulty is that to reduce mandatory retirement age even by five years is prohibitively expensive. Whilst the cost this year of the superannuation allocation for this year for the public service is £196 million, if the mandatory retirement age were reduced to 60 and all those in the age category 60 to 65 were obliged to retire during next year, the cost would amount to a further £104 million in respect of once-off lump sums and £35 million in annual pension costs. In the year in which such an initiative would be introduced the cost would be £140 million additional to the £196 million allocated to pay existing pensions. If a Government had the discretion to have that kind of money available for job creation measures, it would choose to deploy the money in a different way.

Question No. 29.

The Minister is assuming that everybody between the ages of 60 and 65 would go in the first year whereas probably only a small proportion would choose to retire. Is the Minister ruling out all consideration of early retirement for any category between the ages of 60 and 65?

I presume the Deputy is aware that civil servants may retire on a voluntary basis at the age of 60. In the age group 60 to 64 last year, only 14 per cent of serving officers chose to retire.