A Labour Court equality officer has found that Dublin Corporation discriminated against a woman who had sought promotion to the position of senior legal assistant.
There were two vacancies to the position of senior legal assistant, advertised in October 1996, and two men were appointed.
The corporation is appealing the equality officer's decision and the appeal will be heard in the Labour Court on Thursday.
The case comes at a time when the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, has just announced an initiative aimed at increasing the number of women in senior positions within the local authorities.
A spokesman for the corporation stressed that there was no contradiction between the two.
"We felt that the decision of the equality officer was extremely harsh," he said. "When we discussed it with our legal people, we felt there were flaws in it and it should be appealed.
"We consider we're far ahead of anyone else on equality issues, and not just in relation to women. We were foremost in introducing a scheme where general operatives could compete for office jobs; we introduced adult apprenticeships; we were implementing job-sharing at a time the Government was appealing it to Europe," said the spokesman.
"Appealing this case is a normal part of our industrial relations in using the Labour Court. This was a very serious decision with a lot of implications. If the decision goes against us next week, we will implement it without rancour."
The case concerns a woman who has worked as a legal assistant in the conveyancing section of the corporation's legal department since 1982.
In 1996, the corporation sought applications from legal assistants who wished to become senior legal assistants. She was one of nine applicants, of which six were interviewed. Two, both men, were appointed.
The others were informed they were not successful but one of them, a woman, was later appointed to this position. This happened after the complainant had lodged her complaint with the Labour Court.
There were a number of grounds to her complaint. She alleged that there was a pattern of the corporation appointing men from the litigation section to senior positions in her section, at the expense of the complainant and other women in that section.
She had unsuccessfully applied for promotion three times before.
At the hearing, she supplied a statement from another woman in her section who said that since 1992, vacancies in the (mostly female) conveyancing side of the law department had been filled by males from the litigation side.
One aspect of the alleged discrimination claimed by the woman was that she did not get a fair interview.
She said she was asked at the interview if she had done typing in her previous job, which was with a firm of solicitors.
She also said she had not been asked about her specific areas of interest in her work or her leadership qualities.
The corporation denied discrimination, pointing out that the head of its legal section was a woman. It said the positions concerned required broad experience in both areas of its legal department. It had a detailed policy on gender equality.
However, the equality officer found that the complainant was discriminated against in that the successful candidates did not have experience in both areas dealt with by the legal department. The officer also found that the complainant did not get a fair interview, in that she was asked whether she had typed in her previous job, which the male candidates were not.
The equality officer recommended that the complainant should be appointed to the position of senior legal assistant, with back pay from January 1997.
The corporation is appealing against both the finding of discrimination and the recommendation.