Employment discrimination complaints rise 25%

THE number of complaints to the Equality Tribunal for employment discrimination rose by a quarter to 255 in the first nine months of the year.

According to figures published by the tribunal yesterday, one-third of those cases referred to it under the Employment Equality Act so far this year have been on the grounds of gender.

The number of job discrimination claims on the grounds of race more than doubled, rising to 51 in the nine-month period compared with 43 for all of last year. There were also increases in employment cases on grounds of sexual orientation (from one to four) and family status cases jumped from three to eight.

Tribunal director Melanie Pine said it was interesting that such a high level of employment cases continue to be on gender grounds, and the growing rate of race cases.

“I am sure this reflects an increasing awareness amongst the general public of equality rights and equality legislation,” said Ms Pine.

However, Niall Crowley, chief executive of the Equality Authority, said the rise in employment complaints should be seen as a warning signal.

“Discrimination on gender grounds has been illegal for a lot longer than the current legislation, yet cases continue to rise. There also appears to be a challenge for us when we see the increase in race ground complaints,” he said.

There were three collective complaints about employment on behalf of 6,100 people. All the complaints were made on multiple grounds.

While the tribunal will not make details of cases available until they have been decided, it is known that two of the collective complaints are against public sector employers and the third is against a private sector company.

Public sector employers have been the subject of 93 individual complaints so far this year, up from 66 in the same time last year, while complaints against health sector employers fell from 37 to just nine.

Although employment equality legislation cases have risen, complaints made about refusal of access to services fell by almost a quarter between January and September.

Only 581 claims under the Equal Status Act were referred to the Tribunal in that time, compared to 752 in the same period last year.

Most of the Equal Status Act cases referred to the tribunal so far this year are from members of the Travelling community, representing 383 complainants, down from 573 last year.

There has also been a fall in the number of complaints against licensed premises, from 641 to 420. The Equality Tribunal is no longer the forum for redress for complaints of discrimination against pubs, in the case of incidents from the end of last month.

There were 181 equal status cases lodged claiming multiple grounds of discrimination, 45 solely on disability grounds and 33 based on race.

Of 39 employment cases decided this year, 51 people in eight cases had their complaints upheld, with average awards given of almost €2,000.

A further 34 people in 24 equal status cases were deemed to have been discriminated against, but 33 such claims were rejected by the tribunal.