Increasing Pension Ages in Greece and Ireland: The Case of Legitimate Expectations

This paper examines the changes to pension ages in Greece and Ireland precipitated by the global financial crisis and introduced as a result of the Greek and Irish bail-outs. The paper analyses whether pensioners in the two jurisdictions had a legitimate expectation that such changes would not occur or whether they had a legitimate expectation that such changes would not be introduced without transitional measures. It concludes that, while there is no existing legal protection of the legitimate expectation in either case, there are some moral arguments in support of the introduction of transitional measures to ensure that pensioners can make the necessary adjustments to their financial affairs in the light of the changes in pension law.