Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 4:

In page 5, between lines 19 and 20, to insert the following:“(4) This subsection, Part 4and the Employment Equality Acts 1998 to 2015 may be cited together as the Employment Equality Acts 1998 to 2019 and shall be construed together as one.

These amendments relate to a new Part 4 that I am proposing to insert to amend the Employment Equality Act 1998 by providing for a new section 14B. This section would create a new category of discriminatory treatment whereby an employer would not be able to treat a current or prospective employee differently on the basis of a conviction if that conviction was regarded as spent under our spent conviction laws. I am tabling these amendments on foot of recommendation No. 7 of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice and Equality's report on spent convictions, which called on a cross-party basis for this exact change to the Employment Equality Acts.

There is a major gap in our spent conviction laws whereby a spent conviction cannot be used to disadvantage someone in our courts but the same protection is not afforded to those seeking or maintaining employment, where this issue is far more likely to arise. If someone's conviction is spent, he or she currently has the right not to disclose that conviction in a job interview. However, in the era of the Internet and where background checks are becoming routine in recruitment, current and prospective employees need to be protected from being disadvantaged where the employer finds out about the conviction through other means. When we legislate for a conviction to become spent, we are telling that individual that it is no longer on his or her record and he or she is entitled to no longer disclose it. Without this amendment to employment law, however, we are implicitly allowing employers to discriminate on the basis of a conviction that the State has deemed no longer relevant. The amendments would prohibit any requirement to disclose a conviction or circumstances ancillary to it if it is spent.

I wish to reserve the right to table a similar amendment on Report Stage relating to the Ban the Box campaign and to ensure that a prospective employee is only asked about his or her conviction history at a later stage in the application process when he or she has the opportunity to explain it and put it into context.

I hope that the Minister will accept these amendments.