Race issues top equality complaints list with sixfold rise
In the past six years, cases relating to gender, age and membership of the Travelling community have dwindled dramatically.
In the same time, disputes arising because of perceived racism have risen sixfold.
The industry experiencing the biggest difficulty is construction, and the largest number of referrals are from eastern Europeans.
Director of the tribunal Melanie Pine said employees were becoming more aware of their rights. However, she said, employers were far more willing to engage with the tribunal, and particularly explore the possibility of mediation, in recent years.
She said many cases citing racism resulted from people not being able to iron out problems on site owing to language problems.
“What we have seen is employers are more confident they will get a fair hearing and are happy to take part in the tribunal process. We are seeing a lot more cases relating to racism. But when we actually get translators in and people get talking, a lot has to do with communication and a breakdown happening because people do not have good English.
“People feel they are not getting fair treatment and are not able to deal with it in the workplace because they may not speak English,” she said.
The work of the tribunal is separated into employment disputes and those arising from treatment of people as customers and service users.
More than 90% of racism complaints stem from treatment in the workplace, rather than discrimination experienced in accessing services.
A similar divide is experienced in relation to age and gender. In both these categories, the tribunal ruled against the employers in about 56% of cases.
Other areas of discrimination are almost exclusively concerned with equal status rather than employment legislation.
In this section, the biggest increase was in cases of people with a disability.
This category rose by 16% on 2005.
There was a 42% decrease in the number of cases brought by members of the Travelling community in this section.
Director of the Pavee Point Travellers resource centre Ronnie Fay said this should not be taken to mean discrimination has disappeared.
“In some ways people are more aware that they cannot discriminate, but it is still happening.
“There are just areas that the Equality Tribunal no longer deals with, which changes things,” she said.
Before new legislation removed the serving policy of pubs and nightclubs from the scope of the Equality Tribunal to district courts, there were 741 cases brought by members of the Travelling community.
This figure stands at 18.
Ms Fay said cost, literacy requirements and difficulties accessing the courts meant Travellers were less likely to take cases to the district courts.
She said in areas of employment, Travellers were reluctant to take any cases lest they had their names blackened and their employment prospects reduced.
* There was a 26% drop in the number of cases of discrimination against customers and service users.
* There was a 12%increase in the amount of workplace discrimination complaints.
* Referrals based on racism in the workplace rose by 78%.
* There was a 16% increase in the number of cases of discrimination against people with disabilities as service users.
* The average award increased by 17% to €10, 113.
* The largest payout last year was €40,000 to an unnamed priest who was refused inclusion in an injury compensation scheme at a school where he was chaplain.
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