Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 17 July 2025

Committee on Children and Equality

General Scheme of the Equality (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2024: Discussion (Resumed)

2:00 am

Ms Rebecca Gorman:

I thank the Senator so much for his support on the socioeconomic status. I echo the need for a societal approach to this. It is great to have seen cross-party support over the years for this kind of legislation. It would be good to give an example of current case we cannot bring forward under existing equality legislation. A case study we have is the unequal treatment of social housing tenants compared with private renters in an apartment complex. They are treated completely differently by the housing body. Social housing tenants are not allowed use the communal facilities in the apartment complex. They are all found in a separate block and the social tenants do not have access. They are not allowed to even pay to access these services, and just by virtue of their being in social housing. The property management company runs activities for the children like toy show boxes at Christmas, Hallowe'en goody bags and Easter egg hunts and the children in council tenancies are not allowed to attend these events. It is clear discrimination but under our equality legislation, they have no case. It is unbelievable. It has a detrimental impact on children to already be told at this point in their lives they are different and lesser. This is probably going to perpetuate throughout their lives and follow them into adulthood. It is just one small example where our laws and culture are not equipped to deal with this kind of case. That is going to have a long-term impact on these children.

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