GOVERNMENT departments and public bodies are wasting taxpayers’ money by challenging almost every decision made by the Equality Authority in the courts, a senior official at the authority has said.
In one case a local authority challenged a decision that a Traveller family should be provided with a caravan rather than a house, even though this would save the State €150,000, he said.
Brian Merriman, head of communications and acting head of legal services at the authority, said yesterday there was almost “universal recourse to expensive legal actions” when the authority finds against an arm of the State. He said there is a need to find a “new format of resolution and a rebalancing of legal requirements internally” to prevent one arm of the State having its actions challenged by another in the higher courts.
“There have been criticisms of the Equality Authority for taking a number of cases against the State at times but not equally of the State’s resistance to these efforts to ensure equality compliance,” said Mr Merriman at a conference to mark the 10th anniversary of the introduction of enhanced equality legislation in Ireland.
Mr Merriman said the State had set up a legislative infrastructure to ensure employment and service provision are free from discrimination and harassment. But the acceptance of this is not always embedded in subsequent actions by arms of the State, he said.
“We do not take cases lightly. When discrimination occurs in State provision, then it would be welcome if our analysis could be met with a mutual ambition of the legislation of eliminating discrimination, rather than in the instant mounting of expensive legal challenge,” said Mr Merriman.
The Traveller housing case was one of a number of examples cited by Mr Merriman of a public body appealing a decision of the authority. Another example was a legal appeal made by the Department of Education against a decision that it is unfair to mark or annotate in a negative way the examination certificates of students with a disability. “I am not stating that we are always right in law, or that the State should not challenge our actions, but there is much greater scope for us all to embrace the equality benchmark approved by the Oireachtas, without almost universal recourse to expensive legal actions to achieve change in policy or practice and the resultant use of scarce resources,” said Mr Merriman.