Fall in Equality Tribunal cases

THERE has been a dramatic fall in the number of complaints to the Equality Tribunal following the Government’s decision last year to send cases involving pubs and hotels to the district courts instead.

However complaints on other issues have risen by 56%, according to third quarter figures released by the tribunal today.

The number of complaints involving licensed premises has fallen by 95% in the past nine months.

Since September last year complaints of discrimination against licensed premises go before the district court rather than the tribunal.

The number of overall complaints has also fallen compared to the same period last year.

This is the third year in a row that complaints have fallen.

In 2003, the Equality Tribunal received a total of 1,078 complaints of alleged discrimination, compared to 1,289 in 2002.

However, the tribunal is receiving four times the number of complaints annually than when it was first set up five years ago.

Issuing figures for the third quarter of 2004, director of the Equality Tribunal Melanie Pine said there had been huge growth in tribunal business since its establishment in 1999.

“So far this year we have received almost four times the number of complaints we had in the whole of 2000, and we have produced more than four times the number of decisions or mediated agreements.”

Ms Pine said the number of Employment Equality cases has remained steady, but there have been major fluctuations in the grounds cited.

Looking at individual complaints:

The number on the gender ground fell 56% from 85 to 37.

Complaints on the grounds of age increased by 86% from 22 to 41.

Race complaints remained steady at 49, compared to 51 in the same period last year.

In relation to Equal Status, there was a very significant decline in the number of complaints involving the Traveller community, either on its own or with other grounds.

There were large fluctuations in the age, disability and race grounds. Ms Pine said the fall in overall complaints received to date this year, down 261 compared with the same period last year, was exclusively due to a 95% drop in the number of complaints involving licensed premises, down from 420 to 38.

This decline was offset by a rise of 56% in the number of complaints about other issues.

The tribunal has also improved its communication structure with the establishment of a new website.

In its annual report issued earlier this year, figures showed that employment equality complaints increased by 20%, from 300 in 2002 to 361 last year, while equal status complaints decreased by 28%, from 989 to 717.

Contact the tribunal at www.equalitytribunal.ie.