Barred Traveller wins €4,000 compensation

A TRAVELLER has won €4,000 compensation after a pub customer admitted he was getting free beer in return for keeping Travellers out following a ‘riot’.

Traveller, Anne Moorehouse, her husband and two others tried to gain entry into Lil Doyle’s in Co Wicklow in April, 2002, but their path was barred by two men.

“(One of the men) stated that the owner was providing him and the other male with free beer for preventing Travellers from entering the pub,” read a report by the Equality Tribunal.

The pub owner then came to the door and told the four about the pub riot, saying she did not want them on her premises.

“The owner said she was aware that the complainant and her companions were not present on the night (of the riot) and had never caused a problem,” the report added.

Ms Moorehouse told the tribunal she had been deeply embarrassed by being refused entry particularly as they had been allowed in previously and knew the owner well.

Equality Tribunal official Dolores Kavanagh was unable to get a response as the pub’s owner, Maam Enterprises Ltd, was in voluntary liquidation.

Ms Kavanagh awarded €4,000 to Ms Moorehouse, saying the pub and its representatives had failed to counter the Traveller’s complaint of discrimination.

In another equality case Traveller Bernadette Cawley was awarded €450 after she and her cousin were refused service by a barmaid at the Gallery bar in Mountmellick, Laois.

The tribunal heard that the barmaid knew of the involvement of the pair’s family in another incident in another pub.

Pub manager Vincent Reidy backed his barmaid’s decision, saying she was right to refuse service if she felt unsafe. He also said he would refuse to serve them in future.