WRC upholds mandatory retirement of Eircom technician after 44 years on job

A tribunal has upheld the imposition of a mandatory retirement age on an Eircom worker who said he was “fully capable” to keep working past 65.

The ruling comes despite the fact the worker was called back to do “identical” work for Eircom via a third-party contractor when severe weather hit after the termination of his job in September 2024.

Dermot Hayes, a telecoms technician of over 40 years’ service, had pursued a complaint alleging ageist discrimination under the Employment Equality Act against Eircom Ltd.

It was rejected by the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) in a decision published on Friday. .

Eircom cited “intergenerational fairness, succession planning, and health and safety” in a letter in August 2024 declining a request he had made to keep working past his 65^th birthday the following month, the tribunal heard.

Representing himself before the WRC earlier this month, Hayes said he started his career as a trainee at the Department of Posts and Telegraphs in October 1980, prior to Eircom being founded with the privatisation of the telecoms system.

Hayes’ evidence was that he attended a medical appointment with an occupational health assessor in June 2024 and was deemed “fit for work”.

Hayes added that after his retirement on 24 September 2024, he was brought on by a third-party contractor to do work for Eircom which was “identical” to what he was doing before.

He said that the health and safety concerns Eircom was relying on to justify his mandatory retirement at 65 did not actually prevent him doing the work.

He told the WRC he was “fully capable” of doing the job for longer, and set out a claim for financial loss calculated on the basis of working to the age of 70.

Úna Stafford, the managing director of Open Eir Networks, said retiring at 65 was the longstanding practice at the firm as part of a workforce planning strategy which involved taking on apprentices.

Cross-examining Stafford, Hayes pointed to “staffing shortages and overtime demands” which he argued showed there was an “ongoing need for experienced technicians”.

He questioned the reliance of the firm on contractors. Stafford said contractors were being used “only in limited or exceptional circumstances” and that the retirement was “necessary” for workforce planning.

Stafford also said in her evidence that Hayes had an “unblemished career” with the utility and his service was “hugely appreciated”.

Adjudicator Úna Glazier-Farmer wrote it was of “some significance” that Hayes was let do “substantially identical work” for Eircom Ltd through a third-party contractor.

It undermined Eircom’s stance on health and safety as a justification for mandatory retirement, she wrote.

“This tends to weaken the respondent’s reliance on health and safety as a justification for requiring the complainant to retire at age 65, particularly where he had also been certified fit for work,” Glazier-Farmer wrote.

However, she noted that Hayes’s post-retirement work was “a once-off six-week contract” to respond to “a rare occurrence of an extratropical cyclone, and not enough to make the retirement policy disproportionate.

Glazier-Farmer concluded that Eircom was pursuing “legitimate aims” by imposing a retirement age of 65, which was an “appropriate and proportionate” way to pursue workforce planning, intergenerational fairness, and health and safety.

She dismissed Hayes’s complaint on that basis, ruling he “was not discriminated against”.

The respondent was represented by Peter Ward , who appeared with Morgane Conaty, instructed by Arthur Cox.