The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) has called on the Government to expand equality legislation to include discrimination on the grounds of socioeconomic status and on the grounds of criminal conviction.
The proposals are contained in a second set of recommendations from the IHREC as part of an ongoing review of equality legislation.
The chief commissioner of the IHREC, Sinead Gibney, told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland that among the recommendations is the introduction of a “purpose clause which would give guidance to the courts in their interpretation of the law and ensure that over the course of the next couple of decades as things change, that those laws keep up and provide the protections that people need to prevent against discrimination.
“We're also encouraging the extension of things like positive duties and positive action. And again, all of that is about just acknowledging that when discrimination happens and it is often those people who are least able to really combat it.
Attempts had been made in the past to legislate for social discrimination on the grounds of socio-economic status, it was something that the Government had to examine further, said Ms Gibney.
“When we talk about socio-economic status, this is really the reality that because of this it's going to lead to discrimination in Ireland and across the world. And at the moment there's no protection.
“We get a lot of calls into our Your Rights helpline and there's nothing we can offer them that compares to, say, for example, experience of racism. So one of the things we're recommending, for example, is that when the Government tries to implement this, they look at indicators. So it's quite hard to define socio-economic status. So we're suggesting a number of different ways that you can capture that example, geographical location, accent and so on.”
Family status
With regard to discrimination on the basis of gender and family status, the IHREC would recommend that the issues be dealt with separately. “In terms of family status, we're suggesting that that is renamed into the carer grant to allow for the broader range of care that's now given in society.
“Family status is really about protecting somebody who has care responsibilities in the home from discrimination in the workplace. But we know now that care is given not just from a mother to a child, but in lots of different ways. And really the carer wording needs to be updated and we already know that's happening in the Constitution as well.
“The gender grant is a different one and really what we're looking at there is to update it to embrace the more modern interpretation of gender. So gender is a social construct. We all know now that we need to update our understanding of it as a society and indeed our equality laws need to reflect that.
“We believe that the gender grants should be reformed to include details around gender, gender identity, sex characteristics and so on, so that trans people, for example, intersex and gender-fluid and non-binary people can really seek better protections and kind of close the gaps that they currently experience.”
The IHREC is also recommending a broad prohibition on discrimination on the grounds of a criminal conviction, an issue about which Ms Gibney said she was very passionate. People who had been in prison told her that they served two sentences – the first in prison, the second when they are released and which follow them for life when they are discriminated against because they have been in prison.
People should not be discriminated against simply because they’ve had a conviction, she said.
The proposals which have been presented to the Government by IHREC had set a pathway for future Governments should all the necessary changes not be introduced during the lifetime of the current Dáil.
Written by Vivienne Clarke
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