Launch of the Annual Reports for the Equality Authority and Equality Tribunal - Sept '08

Both the Equality Authority and the Equality Tribunal launched their Annual Reports for 2007 recently. The Annual Reports are available on www.equality.ie and www.equalitytribunal.ie respectively.

Equality Authority Annual Report

The Equality Authority promotes equality of opportunity for all and seeks to combat discrimination in the areas covered by the Employment Equality Acts and the Equal Status Acts. As part of its role it seeks to stimulate and support initiatives that enable organisations to achieve full equality in their practices, and, furthermore, to develop a culture of compliance with equality legislation. The Annual Report sets out statistics relating to the queries responded to by the Authority:

The Equality Tribunal Annual Report

The Equality Tribunal is a quasi-judicial body which mediates and/or investigates claims of unlawful discrimination under the Employment Equality Acts, 1998-2007, Equal Status Acts, 2000-2004 and Pensions Acts, 1990-2004. The Annual Report highlights the fact that in 2007 the Tribunal received the highest number of referrals so far in its existence. There was an increase of 47% in Employment Equality claims in 2007. Ms Melanie Pine, Director of the Equality Tribunal, noted that many of these claims involved significant new points of law or large numbers of people, and these claims have implications for employers in every area of the economy. Cases were resolved by the Equality Tribunal during 2007 as follows:

* Note: "Otherwise closed" can include inadmissibility, out-of-time, withdrawn or dismissal.

Of the cases brought to investigation, 42% were won by the Complainant, and 56% were won by the Respondent.

The main grounds of referral were:

Race, Disability and Gender continued to increase, while there was a decrease in the Age ground referrals.

The Equality Tribunal also published its Legal Review for 2007, which provides an overview of issues arising in the decisions of the Tribunal. This can be a useful reference guide for what is expected from employers in the area of employment equality compliance, and is also available on the Tribunal website.

For more information on Equality legislation, refer to Chapter 7, 'Equality', in the Personnel Policies and Procedures - the Law in Perspective manual.