Discrimination complaints to tribunal soar 40%

DISCRIMINATION claims received by the director of the Equality Tribunal are up 40% so far this year.

About 10% of the cases heard by the tribunal are harassment claims and some are similar to the case taken by a woman r ecently awarded maximum compensation of two years’ salary.

The woman, who worked as a secretary and administrator on a FÁS-sponsored community employment scheme, said her supervisor had tried to grope her, made personal remarks of a sexual nature and, on one occasion, exposed himself to her.

The director of the tribunal, Melanie Pine, said the 10% drop overall on the number of claims made during the first six months of this year masked significant differences between discrimination claims relating to employment and claims relating to access to goods and services.

Over the same six-month period the number of claims made under the Equal Status Act fell by over 20%, from 519 to 409.

The most dramatic fall was in claims against licensed premises, which dropped 30% from 357 to 324. Claims on the grounds of being a member of the Travelling community fell by about 27%.

In relation to cases decided in the first six months of the year, tribunal equality officers upheld about one-in-four claims of discrimination in employment and about one-in-three claims of discrimination in access to goods and services.

The total compensation awarded in employment cases was 19,000 and 13,603 in equal status cases.

Ms Pine said the adjudication process took about 18 months but the mediation route was quicker.

The tribunal was set up in October 1999 and its work has steadily increased in recent years as people became more aware of their rights.

In 2000, it handled a total of 147 cases. Last year, the tribunal had 1,300 cases on its books and expects the caseload to be around the same this year.

While the tribunal has been able to assign cases that came in during March and April, a small backlog has built up. Ms Pine is hoping the delay in processing cases will be no longer than three months.

Equality Authority chief executive Niall Crowley said the authority was aware of a significant increase in

workers being discriminated against on race grounds but was surprised by the 40% overall increase in discrimination claims reported by the tribunal.

Referring to the tribunal’s maximum compensation award to the woman worker, Mr Crowley said sexual harassment was a devastating experience.

“The key lesson to be learned from the case is the importance of employers having policies and procedures in place to protect their workers,” he said.

“We are very concerned that many employers have not taken these very basic steps as the law now requires them to do.”