Katherine Zappone (Independent) | Oireachtas source

In the interests of time, I will discuss amendment No. 5 briefly. This seeks to add a more air-tight character to the Government's tests or criteria whereby religious institutions can justify discriminatory treatment against employees on the basis of their ethos. The amendment is rooted in my efforts on Committee Stage to amend the Bill.

I acknowledged that it is the intent of the Government and Senator Bacik to ensure that the employee's right to privacy is adequately protected and that his or her private life is effectively off limits to an objective justification by a religious institution for its discriminatory treatment. Amendment No. 5 would insert a simple and straightforward line in the Government's amendment to the effect that the employer must have due regard to the employee's or prospective employee's right to privacy. With this brief amendment, the Bill would be strengthened considerably so that the Government's efforts to protect freedom of religion could not extend beyond religious grounds into an employee's private life. A religious institution would have too high a bar to meet if it wished to discriminate against, for example, a lesbian or heterosexual woman who was pregnant through assisted human reproduction, a lesbian or gay man who wore a wedding ring, as Senator Power mentioned, or an unmarried mother who was living with her children.If this line were added, a religious institution would have too high a bar to meet if it wished to discriminate against a lesbian or heterosexual woman who is pregnant through assisted human reproduction or a lesbian or gay man who wears a wedding ring or an unmarried mother who is living with her children. To include a requirement to have due regard to the right to privacy in the Bill would be very straightforward as our courts recognise that the personal rights in the Constitution imply that right. It would go a significant distance to ensure that one's identity or the conduct that naturally flows from it would not jeopardise one's employment.