Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to have legislative scrutiny performed on this legislation, which Deputy Fiona O'Loughlin and I introduced last year. I also welcome the representatives from the Equality and Rights Alliance and IBEC. It is very important to get perspectives from outside the Houses on the legislation, which has gone through Second Stage, before we bring forward amendments on Committee Stage.

I will give members a very brief overview of what is proposed in this short but important legislation. At present, equality law in Ireland is governed by measures introduced since the 1990s, namely, the Employment Equality Acts and the Equal Status Acts. The former provides for a prohibition on discrimination in respect of employment and access to employment. The latter deals with a prohibition on discrimination in respect of what can generally be referred to as services or the offer of services to citizens in the State. Both Acts contain prohibitions in respect of discriminating against individuals on what are referred to as discriminatory grounds. One cannot treat an individual less favourably than a person who is not so associated, on the basis of the discriminatory grounds. One cannot discriminate against a person on gender grounds - because the person is a woman - in an employment context. One cannot discriminate against a person because he or she is a Traveller in terms of permitting access to a public house or institution such as that.

It is important to remind members there are nine discriminatory grounds in legislation. They are gender, that is, one person is a woman, the other a man; civil status; family status; sexual orientation; religion; age; disability; race; or membership of the Traveller community. Those nine grounds are set out in section 6 of the Employment Equality Act and section 3 of the Equal Status Act. In respect of any such discrimination, it has to be acknowledged that it is extremely difficult to prove whether, for example, in the employment context, an employer is discriminating against an individual on the religion ground or the gender ground. One does not really know the thought process behind a potential employer's decision to employ one person and not to employ another. Let us not be under any illusion that it is easy to prove discrimination because it is not; it is extremely difficult. The benefit of the legislation is that it sets out very concisely and clearly that discrimination on these grounds is prohibited. It sends a message to the community when people see legislation introduced by the Oireachtas which says one cannot discriminate against individuals on these nine grounds.

The legislation introduced by Deputy O'Loughlin and I would add a further ground, namely, the disadvantaged socioeconomic status ground, to those already in existence. It sounds complicated. I will tell the committee the thinking behind it. Very many people have come into my constituency clinic and informed me - I was surprised when I heard it first - that if they are from certain local authority estates or estates which have a reputation, unfairly or undeservedly, of being areas where there is anti-social behaviour or high crime, they do not put down the address in their estate when they apply for a job. The reason is that communicating their addresses in certain well-known estates or local authority housing areas deters employers. I was astonished when I heard this. It obviously happens because it has been mentioned to me on numerous occasions. I will not give examples of local authority estates but it is the case, unfortunately, that discrimination takes place against individuals looking for jobs when they put down in their curricula vitae or application forms that they are from particular estates. Everyone in this room will agree that such forms of discrimination should not be permitted. It is simply unacceptable that an employer would prejudicially assume that a person who is from such an estate is less capable of doing the job than anyone else. That is how it applies in the area of employment. Similarly, under the provisions of the Equal Status Act, it would be wholly unacceptable if people were being prevented from having access to a public house or restaurant because they came from a certain local authority estate. Pubs and restaurants are perfectly entitled to have a dress code or any type of code they wish. I hope Deputy Wallace is not offended by that.

One thing they are not allowed to do is turn around and say that they do not want particular groups or individuals coming in because they come from such and such an area in the State. This legislation proposes a tenth ground that one cannot discriminate against people in employment or against people in the equal status legislation if they have a disadvantaged socio-economic status. That is difficult to define but the Bill proposes to insert a new definition of disadvantaged socio-economic status, which I believe to be most appropriate, namely, "'Disadvantaged socio-economic status' means a socially identifiable status of social or economic disadvantage resulting from poverty, level or source of income, homelessness, place of residence, or family background;”. I am aware there have been reports on this before and that the Minister has some concerns about it. I have thought about it and I believe the proposed amendment is worthwhile, as does my colleague Deputy O'Loughlin. Like all of the other grounds, it will be difficult to prove, but I believe that everyone in this room agrees there should not be discrimination against individuals on the basis of where they are from, if they happen to come from a disadvantaged socio-economic background.

It will also add some vigour to equality law in this jurisdiction. Sometimes, perhaps unfairly, equality law is seen as being a rather niche interest that applies to certain interest groups. I suspect there is a lot of discrimination in this area. This legislation would benefit significant numbers of people in our society and, more than the fact that it could be identifiable before the courts, it would send out a strong message that one cannot discriminate against people because they come from a poor background or from certain housing estates that are perceived to be associated with anti-social behaviour.

This is the opening I wanted to give and I am happy to take questions. Most importantly, I want to hear the views of others and I want to hear the views of IBEC and the Equality and Rights Alliance. The witnesses must feel free to say what they want in this regard. The committee want to hear the criticisms of the legislation. It has not yet reached Committee Stage and any suggestions or amendments that are made will be considered on Committee Stage.