Paul Connaughton (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate on the Bill. As is the case with all legislation which comes before the House, I am concerned with regard to its likely impact. Essentially, the Bill would place more pressure on the staff of public bodies to prepare reports and would require the allocation of significant additional resources to the Equality Authority in order that it might respond appropriately to such reports. Within the public sector, measures which would have to be proofed in line with an equality impact scheme of this nature would be the annual budget presented by the Government and voted on by the Dáil. At a time when the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, must make incredibly difficult budget decisions, the thought that this entire process could be held up while civil servants check if there is any possibility that the budget might have a negative impact on former IRA prisoners released early under the Good Friday Agreement is simply bizarre.

The Government has a job to do and it must be allowed to work unhindered towards achieving its goal of getting the country back on track, restoring consumer confidence and rebuilding the broken jobs market. This work is being done at a time when we continue to spend beyond our means.

In many respects, the rationale behind this Bill is laudable. It seeks to ensure decisions made by Government and public bodies are examined to see what impact they will have on the most disadvantaged in our society. However, the flaw in this Bill is the method by which it seeks to achieve that goal.

One reason the Equal Status Act has had some measure of success to date is that its parameters are confined to nine grounds. Students in secondary school learn the nine grounds under which discrimination in the provision of goods and services is prohibited. To add a further five grounds would only serve to confuse the public, dilute the Act and have the opposite effect to that intended.

Another element in terms of the success of the Equal Status Act is that its measures were mirrored in the Employment Equality Act. This Bill seeks to insert a further five grounds for discrimination in the provision of goods and services but not in terms of employment, which is welcome. For an employer faced with many prospective employees to have to explain himself or herself if he or she chooses not to take on someone with a criminal conviction for theft, for example, is simply unworkable. Once again, common sense must prevail. The nine provisions in both Acts are easily understood and are sensible. The extension of the grounds to a further five sections of society in the Equal Status Act but not the Employment Equality Act is not sensible and simply must be rejected on those grounds.

In terms of the impact assessments this Bill proposes public bodies carry out, no consideration has been given to the extra burden this will place on public bodies in the context of staff costs at a time when resources in all public bodies are extremely stretched and when staff are under great pressure to comply with all the strictures with which they are currently faced. In the current economic circumstances, any change to legislation should be accompanied by a comprehensive assessment of how much additional expenditure such measures are likely to incur. The lack of any explanatory material in terms of the financial burden this proposed Bill will place on public bodies is a serious lapse and further underlines why this Bill cannot be supported.

The Government in the Programme for National Recovery 2011-2016 undertook to require all public bodies to take note of equality and human rights in carrying out their duties. This is a much more sensible approach to the matter - one that requires fewer resources on behalf of all public bodies but which still requires that they consider the human rights environment in which they operate.

For five years, tough decisions have had to be made by Ministers for Finance in order to steer the country away from the disastrous course it was on. This year will be no different. Resources are increasingly scarce in Government Departments and public bodies but, more important, in every household across the country. Anyone in charge of household finances knows that in tough times, every decision must be examined in terms of the extra financial burden it will create and what the reward, if any, will be.

While laudable objectives lie at the heart of the drafting of this Bill, it is unrealistic in the current climate and if passed, would do little more than place a major bureaucratic burden on already hard-pressed employees in public bodies.

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