Council guilty of racial discrimination
The Equality Authority ordered the local authority to pay €7,500 compensation after it ruled the council had discriminated against Kamil Jurczewski during the recruitment process in 2008.
It found the council had placed additional obstacles in front of Polish applicants.
The tribunal said it was satisfied that the recruitment process adopted by the council was applied inconsistently in such a way as to favour Irish applicants over Polish candidates.
“There is evidence of sufficient significance to raise a presumption that the complainant’s nationality was more than a trivial influence on the [council’s] decision not to recruit him for the post in question,” the tribunal concluded.
Mr Jurczewski had worked as a lifeguard in Co Donegal in 2006.
The tribunal noted that the only two candidates out of a total of 37 to fail the test were Polish. It also observed that Mr Jurczewski was better qualified and considerably more experienced than most other candidates.
He was the only candidate to fail the first aid element of the test, despite having specific qualifications in the discipline.
The tribunal upheld Mr Jurczewski’s complaint that the council failed to award him extra marks for having first aid qualifications, despite making such a statement in the advertisement for the lifeguard position.
It also heard that Mr Jurczewski’s original score in the test had been changed from a pass mark of 25 to 24, which meant he had failed.
Meanwhile, in a separate ruling, the tribunal ordered the Irish Prison Service to pay €10,000 compensation to an unnamed prison officer whom it ruled had been discriminated against by its failure to provide reasonable accommodation following a period of sick leave.
The complainant, who was an assistant chief officer, said he was discriminated against over the refusal by prison authorities to accommodate his request to be excused working nights on a temporary basis following his return to work after 50 days sick leave due to a incident in Mar 2009 when he suffered a debilitating episode.
The Prison Service was aware that the officer experienced depression, but argued that the refusal to accommodate his request was not based on a disability but for operational reasons.
However, the tribunal found the Prison Service had failed to meet its obligations under equality legislation by failing to properly consider a reasonable request as well as ignoring a doctor’s certificate which had been provided.
