Ms Bríd O'Brien:

There is research available on the issue of age, although it is not recent because the entity that carried out the work no longer exists, having been absorbed into another entity that is still finding its feet. Equality issues are one of the areas on which research has not been carried out at the level all of us would like it to be done. It was one of the areas for which funding was cut when the crisis hit. Trying to get many social issues researched properly is problematic at present. While there is research, it is out of date.

Some of the equality work that has been done is based on the Central Statistics Office's quarterly national household survey. Interestingly, the two issues that came out as the highest categories for discrimination were race and unemployment. Unemployment was captured even though we do not have a ground of socioeconomic status. It was captured because people are asked their principal economic status in the survey and this question includes whether they are employed or unemployed. This was the second highest category for discrimination that people face. There are also bodies that provide human resource supports that have done research on both of these islands. I can send the relevant references to the Deputy. The issue has been well documented over a fair number of years but we do not have recent research.