CLARE COUNTY Council asked the Equality Tribunal to investigate the personal finances of Traveller advocate Heather Rosen, and threatened High Court proceedings if the tribunal did not stop her representing Travellers at their hearings.
This is revealed in documentation released by the Equality Tribunal into one of the failed discrimination cases taken by Ms Rosen on behalf of Clare-based Travellers.
It emerged last week that Ms Rosen received funding of €64,000 from a Dublin-based private group Social Entrepreneurs Ireland to lodge the complaints in 2005-07. To date it has cost the council €150,000 to defend the complaints.
The tribunal has dismissed 37 cases initiated by Ms Rosen and has fined her €7,400, €200 for each case, for obstructing the work of the tribunal.
Documents released by the tribunal say the council submitted "that Ms Rosen is funded by a charitable organisation and that they intend to investigate this, and they have requested in a number of recent submissions that the tribunal also investigate Ms Rosen's funding".
The equality officer in the case, Marian Duffy, said she disallowed questions about the source of Ms Rosen's personal finances as not relevant to the investigation.
The documents show the council at one stage threatened High Court proceedings if the Co Down native was not dismissed from acting at the tribunal.
The tribunal decided not to disallow Ms Rosen, but Ms Duffy concluded that Ms Rosen's behaviour at the hearings "resulted in a lot of wasted time and resources for both the tribunal and the council, and this behaviour cannot be tolerated by the tribunal".
Ms Rosen denied she obstructed or impeded the work of the tribunal in any way. She said she was seeking a legal remedy so as not to pay the fines. "The fines are unreasonable and are very far from natural justice."