Martin Conway (Fine Gael)

In that case, I will refrain from doing so. The cases in question are, however, in the public domain as they were brought before the Equality Tribunal and have been covered in the media.

Anyone may make a complaint to the Equality Tribunal. While the tribunal does important work, the problem I have is with the complete absence of procedures. An individual can write a complaint on the back of an envelope and submit it to the tribunal which is then obliged to carry out an investigation. Moreover, the institution against which a complaint has been made is obliged to mount a defence. If all 1,300 complaints to which I referred are investigated and ultimately dismissed, taxpayers will be exposed to costs running into millions of euro. Clare County Council has already borne significant costs as a result of having to defend the cases in question. Frequent adjournments of cases on various grounds further increase costs.

The Equal Status Act is extremely important legislation in an extremely important area. However, elements of the Act, particularly as regards the reporting of cases to the Equality Tribunal, can be abused if people so wish. I call for the introduction of an amendment to the Act to ensure the Equality Tribunal is not abused. That is not its purpose; this should not happen and it must stop. There is a provision in the Act, whereby the Minister can introduce regulations relating to how the Equality Tribunal carries out its business and adjudicates on cases, but to date no such regulations have been introduced. The legislation remains important but some tweaking is needed. If we are to have an effective tribunal which is run efficiently and to do what it is supposed to do, an amendment is required to the Equal Status Act. I call on the Minister of State to follow up the matter.