Man awarded €12,700 compensation for discrimination

The Equality Authority has awarded €12,700 to a man who was discriminated against on the grounds of gender by a language school.

The man was offered a €40,000 job at the school, but the offer was withdrawn because a member of the religious order that ran the school did not think the job was suitable for a man.

The ruling that he was discriminated against was one of 14 published today by the Equality Authority.

Six of the cases involved Travellers who claimed they were discriminated against by various businesses, but only two of these were upheld.

In a separate case, a woman was awarded €1,000 compensation for sexual harassment despite testimony from her co-workers that she had instigated the sexual banter behind the complaint.

Elsewhere, the authority rejected a case taken by a woman who claimed she was refused entry to a Dublin auctioneers’ office because she was accompanied by her five-year-old son.

The equality officer involved in the case agreed with Mullen’s Auctioneers that the child could have damaged some of the merchandise in the showroom if he had been allowed to enter.