An Post has been ordered by the Equality Tribunal to pay €90,000 in compensation to a postman after it found he had suffered discrimination on the basis of his age.
Postman James Dunne took his case in 2003 after he was told he was unable to apply for an owner-driver scheme working as a self-employed contractor. He was 61 at the time and was told that no one over 60 could apply.
There was also a severance package related to pay for those not being included in the scheme.
However, equality officer Mary Rogerson found that An Post also discriminated against Mr Dunne on the basis of age in relation to the severance package.
She ordered that An Post pay him €80,000 compensation in respect of pay and a further €10,000 compensation for the "distress and breach of rights" as a result of the discrimination.
An Post denied discrimination but Ms Rogerson found "there was an attempt to exclude all those over 60 from applying" for the owner-driver deal.
An Post was losing money and the restructuring deal was negotiated with the Communications Workers Union to reduce staff numbers by about 200.
In a written submission, An Post said it had initially costed the scheme on the assumption that there would be no age limit to access it but had found the price of the scheme would have increased from €3 million to €3.6 million.
An Post was suffering an overall loss of €32 million and the increased cost of allowing those over 60 access to the scheme would have pushed up that loss by 2 per cent.
Mr Dunne was employed as a driver for 24 of his 26 years of service with An Post.