Mr. Niall Crowley:

I thank the Chairman for the invitation to participate in this important discussion. We bring our statement on behalf of more than 170 civil society groups and individuals who are involved in equality and human rights issues. There is huge interest in and welcome for the Equality (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2017. We congratulate and acknowledge the initiative of Deputy O'Callaghan. It is timely and important.

The new ground will be important in underpinning and strengthening the links now created between equality and human rights with the establishment of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission. This is important because we need to align our equality legislation with our international human rights commitments, which already contain a prohibition on discrimination with regard to social origin and socio-economic status.

The new legislation can take advantage of the integrated multi-ground equality, diversity and non-discrimination systems adopted by many public and private sector organisations since the enactment of the Employment Equality Act and the Equal Status Act. Those Acts presented a real challenge to these organisations, in moving from one ground to nine grounds. There was a significant burden in gearing up for that legislation. There is no significant burden for private and public sector organisations in gearing up from nine grounds to ten grounds. It is merely the addition on one ground to the already developed multi-ground equality and diversity systems. The proposed legislation can serve as a valuable and necessary complement to social policy in this field. For too long we have lived with the contradiction where we allow discrimination on the socio-economic status ground to undermine our aspirations regarding poverty policy and social policy in that field.

The proposed legislation is not a surprise. It has been argued for since the Employment Equality Act 1998. In that legislation the response to the demand for more than nine grounds was made by the Minister at the time by including a review clause requiring the Minister to assess, within two years, the need to add further grounds. Already the pressure was there that it was not sufficiently comprehensive legislation and there was a need to go further. As part of that review, in 2002 the former Equality Authority proposed the introduction of a socio-economic status ground, highlighting high levels of socio-economic discrimination in the labour market, as Deputy O'Callaghan has just done.

In response to the proposal from the former Equality Authority, a research report of 2004 commissioned by the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform suggested that a socio-economic status ground would serve the objectives underpinning the equality legislation. Importantly, the report also pointed out that it would allow a more sophisticated intersectional approach to its implementation. Many of the grounds do not operate alone in incidences of discrimination. They combine to produce a cumulative disadvantage. Research from the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, and the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, IHREC, has shown that socio-economic status affects the exposure to discrimination and responses to discrimination. Most of the grounds intersect with the ground of socio-economic status. It is crucially important, even in protecting the other grounds, that we include the ground of socio-economic status.

The Equality (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2015 introduced housing assistance as a new ground into the Equal Status Act in order that people in receipt of housing assistance and social welfare payments could not be discriminated against in the provision of accommodation or related services. This was the beginnings and the foundation for the socio-economic status ground. This Bill will complete and build on that foundation.

As for the history of the Bill, the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, in a 2015 submission to the UN, highlighted the need to prohibit discrimination on the basis of socio-economic status in equality legislation. The UN committee noted its regret that Irish legislation does not provide protection against discrimination on all grounds of discrimination prohibited by UN human rights covenants.

The case for the enactment of the Equality (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill has been well made over time. In this regard, most assistance has been given by the CSO’s regular quarterly national household survey, QNHS, equality module, which is produced every four years. This has highlighted a significant lack of comprehensiveness in the coverage of our equality legislation. We can also look to developments across Europe and the European Union, where provision for such a ground is increasingly evident in equality legislation. The analysis of the 2014 QNHS equality module highlighted high levels of discrimination; 12% of the population aged 18 or over reported experiencing some form of discrimination in the previous two years. This is a high figure even in comparison with other EU countries. Within this figure the survey identified very high levels of discrimination beyond the coverage of our existing legislation with 29.6% of those who reported discrimination stating that it was on grounds other than those covered by the current equality legislation. This is a major challenge if we want our equality legislation to function and to meet its goals.

In an analysis of the previous quarterly national households survey equality module, the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, and the then Equality Authority identified that this other ground, this 29.6%, is most related to income, location or address. To the extent that was possible on the data that was there, the evidence was that the missing ground is that of socioeconomic status. Looking across Europe, our research noted that in 2015 the European network of legal experts at the European Commission identified that equality legislation now provides protection against discrimination on the ground of socioeconomic status in 20 of the 35 European countries they cover. Ireland broke new ground with the Employment Equality Act 1998 and the nine grounds it covered. We were the leaders across Europe. We are now the laggards. One of the areas in which we lag behind relates to socioeconomic status and the introduction of that ground.

We also note that research by Equinet, the European network of equality bodies, found that it takes time for this ground to become embedded and understood, as Deputy O'Callaghan has pointed out. However, it has shown its value over time, with increased and more comprehensive casework. These cases now cover the fields of employment, social services, public and private housing, health care and social protection. We have no reason to believe that Ireland will be any different from other European countries in that regard.

Finally, I will address the question of definition. The definition of the socioeconomic status ground does present challenges. Everybody has acknowledged that. However, it is not unique to this ground. The definitions of the race ground and the disability ground, in particular, have presented challenges in the past. This has not proved in any way to be an impediment to their implementation, both through law and through practice of public and private sector organisations. Equality legislation has never worked on the basis of large numbers of cases coming forward. Every time we introduce new grounds, there is a prediction that it is going to open the floodgates and there will be thousands of cases. That never happens. Equality legislation, for various reasons, functions on the basis of a small number of strong and successful cases that serve to generate a culture of compliance. That reflects what we are trying to do with equality legislation; to build a culture of compliance so that discrimination does not happen in the first place. That is why this ground is so important.

We need to be careful not to define the ground too narrowly so that it does not play that role. The definition needs to be broad enough to encompass those who experience the discrimination. It needs to be specific enough to allow for action to prevent such discrimination, which is the ultimate goal, and to enable cases to be brought forward. We believe the definition outlined in the Bill matches this requirement, but also matches the proposals already put forward in the past and reflects current practice across the European Union. The Equality Authority suggested using a number of indicators to establish socioeconomic status, in a similar way to the definition in this Bill. These include family background, geographical location, home ownership, educational background, and economic situation. The 2004 report of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform noted the use of the following indicators in defining the ground: level of education; level of literacy; homelessness; geographic location; source of income; level of income; type of work or profession; and employment status.

Finally, in our research, the Equality and Rights Alliance noted four clusters of indicators in the provision on this ground in equality legislation across Europe. These include the focus on social origin in Belgium, Croatia and Hungary; the focus on social status, social position, social condition or social class in Bulgaria and Croatia, and in a proposal before parliament in France, wealth income, property, economic situation or financial status in Belgium, Bulgaria Croatia and Hungary; and education in Bulgaria. We have found that the most effective approaches to resolving the definitional issues involve a situation-specific analysis, which is why these indicators are so important, and an asymmetrical protection focused on the issue of disadvantage, and those in a disadvantaged socioeconomic situation.

We believe we have the infrastructure in place to ensure the effective implementation of this ground. We have an Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, which is now well-established and well-resourced. This is very welcome. The commission has a key role in awareness-raising around such a ground, and in providing guidance to employers and service-providers on the indicators that might be covered by it. We have in place a functioning Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, which is increasingly improving its performance on equality cases. That body is there, along with the courts, to provide necessary interpretations. That is the way legislation has always worked. We have the infrastructure to make this work.