Dr. Frances McGinnity:

I thank Senator O'Reilly. Where we looked in the research at, say, the experience of discrimination in seeking work and compared the different groups, we did not have enough Travellers to examine in detail the jobs to which the recruitment discrimination was applied. We do not have that sort of detailed information. I know from other research I have done on the experience of discrimination in recruitment that good training on recruitment in terms of equality policies is important. I refer to a small company not having a human resources, HR, person but the employer has a sense of what is appropriate and the law around equality. In bigger organisations, and ideally everywhere, there should be rules around recruitment, which can guide people. That might also reduce the chance that people will simply act on some of their preconceived ideas or hunch.

There is a general finding that recruitment discrimination tends to be lower in the public sector, but we did not have enough evidence to say whether that was true for Travellers. We did not have that kind of detailed information in the survey we looked at.

In terms of discrimination in the workplace, certainly in terms of the Central Statistics Office, CSO, and other big surveys we would rely on that survey the whole population, it covers a range of issues, including harassment, microaggression and bullying. It can also cover people believing they are discriminated against in terms of how much they are paid and their promotional prospects. In the front-facing service jobs, it can be the experience of discrimination at work from the employer but it can also be from co-workers or, in service occupations, from customers, clients or whatever. Recruitment is in the hands of the person giving the job, the employer, but when someone has a job and is experiencing discrimination in the workplace, that is a wider issue. I hope that answers the Senator's question.