Seanad debates
Thursday, 12 December 2002
National Tourism Development Authority Bill, 2002: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage.
If we proceed with Senator Henry's amendment – she has acknowledged the difficulty in this – we would insert into legislation dealing with a national tourism authority a provision dealing with equality. Aside from the appropriateness of doing that, there is a difficulty in terms of the practicalities. If the measure was inserted into the legislation, it would mean that every time the National Tourism Development Authority was going to making a grant available, it would have to conduct inquiries as to whether the body to which or person or persons to whom it was making the grant available was guilty of discrimination. It would be virtually impossible to do so. It would be a different matter if the body, person or persons had been held to be behaving in a discriminatory manner, but everybody will immediately recognise the major problem of the National Tourism Development Authority deciding in advance of any court case whether discrimination was being practised. The National Tourism Development Authority is not a court and could not be empowered to make a decision of that sort.
No comments