Equality (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2013 [Seanad]: Second Stage (Resumed)

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Deputy Clare Daly

I believe I am sharing time with Deputy Coppinger.

I was nearly going to punish the Minister of State by starting where I started last night. I will let him off and will not go back to where we ended up last night. It is obviously difficult to pick up a slot midway through having made half the points last night and having to conclude them this afternoon. The point I was making when we adjourned last night was that to allow dances is appropriate, but that exemption should only be dealt with in a spirit of accommodating religious liberty.

The problem we have with this issue is as a direct consequence of the undue influence of the Catholic Church in the provision of essential State services and a legacy issue with that in terms of hospital care, education and so on. Everybody needs access to schools and hospitals. The religious ethos of an organised religion or its believers should never be allowed to interfere with a citizen's right to health or education. That is the starting point of this.

For example, Savita Halappanavar's husband, Praveen, should never have been told in a Galway hospital that this was a Catholic country and that his wife was not entitled to a termination of pregnancy. It should have had nothing to do with the provision of services in a State-funded hospital.

Section 37 exemptions have been given, which have allowed the Catholic Church to discriminate in cases where it believed an employee was not upholding the ethos of the school or hospital. In certain instances, that is appropriate. If it was an entirely Catholic-funded institution and the job was, for example, to teach the Catholic religion, there would have been a basis for discrimination but in any other situation, there would not.

While I welcome the Bill and the fact we are beginning to discuss discrimination, it does not go far enough. What we should be saying is that educational and medical institutions, which are funded by the State, should be taken out of the remit of section 37 altogether. Those institutions have a wider role in society. They are funded by the taxpayer and equal access should exist regardless of religious beliefs. In a hospital, there is no occupational reason only a person of faith could do a medical or administrative job. Similarly, there is no occupational reason in State schools. It is linked to the provision of chaplains or spiritual advisers in those institutions, which should be a matter for the religions and not be funded by the State. The Minister of State, Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, is aware of work done by Atheist Ireland in this regard. It has highlighted the case of institutes of technology, which were established on an entirely secular model and have no religious functions, and yet we know hundreds of thousands of euro in taxpayers' money is being used to fund Catholic chaplains in a number of the institutions. That is simply not good enough.

The provision in the Bill about the prohibition on discrimination by landlords against rent supplement recipients is welcome but while it will stop landlords putting up a notice to the effect that no rent supplement applicant need apply, it does very little else in terms of preventing discrimination against those in receipt of rent supplement. The ability of landlords to discriminate against them on an ongoing basis could continue but more "discreetly", for the want of a better word. The situation of tenants has been made incredibly more vulnerable by the Government’s fudging and mishandling of the rent situation of late, which is most worrying. The Government could be doing a lot more in that regard.

The final issue I wish to address is the question of why the Bill is not more comprehensive than it is. It is a confusing, miscellaneous piece of legislation. When we talk about equality provisions, that is a recognition that equality really means treating different people differently. That is being equal. I do not understand why we have not been all-encompassing in the Bill’s provisions. I note that the Bill makes a slight reference to retirement age, making the point that it is not discriminatory to have different ages for different fixed-term contracts but it does not deal with the issue before the House currently, namely, the abolition of compulsory or mandatory retirement, which is a far bigger issue for older citizens. It is a bit mad that a committee of the Houses conducted hearings yesterday with Age Action Ireland and other bodies to try to address this very important issue while we have legislation before us dealing with equality that touches on the retirement age but does not address it. That is bad planning on the part of the House. What is being sought in Deputy Ferris’s Bill, which is a matter on which many older citizens feel strongly, is the elimination of the maximum age in employment contracts. If there is a need to have a maximum age in a particular occupation, then that could be legally justified. In the normal course of events, for example, if it required a super level of physical fitness, that would be allowed. However, to have a contract with a compulsory retirement age is a measure people have long sought to review. That is not in any way pandering to this unfortunate trend in society where people have to work longer in order to secure a decent standard of living but that is a slightly separate argument. I would like the Minister of State to address why the abolition of the compulsory or mandatory retirement age is not included in the Bill and whether he would be open to including it because it would be a far more preferable way forward.

I echo some of the points made by Deputy Mac Lochlainn last night in terms of the absence of rights and equality for disabled citizens. It is regrettable and I would like to see more progress in that regard. I am pleased the Bill has been brought before the House but we are only on Second Stage and we could make it considerably better. We could make it better for lesbian, gay and atheist teachers by removing educational and medical institutions altogether from the remit of section 37 but we could also make the situation better for older citizens, disabled citizens and others who have an equal right to demand equality, as we are not giving them as much attention as we should.

Deputy Ruth Coppinger

I welcome the Bill in that it will bring changes to section 37 of the Employment Equality Act, which have been sought by many groups, including trade unions, teachers unions, in particular, and LGBT groups. However, the provisions in the Bill are still very inadequate. The Anti-Austerity Alliance introduced a Bill some months ago in Private Members' time to repeal section 37 and it contained different provisions from those outlined in the Bill before the House.

My first question is why the State is differentiating between people employed by a religious institution or a medical institution in the public or private sectors. We do not allow discrimination by private sector employers and do not exempt them from other employment laws. For example, we do not exempt Dunnes Stores from recognising trade unions. I still do not understand why the Government is saying that only publicly-funded education or medical institutions can discriminate on religious grounds where the treatment does not constitute discrimination on any of the other discriminatory grounds. What it means is that there can still be discrimination in private organisations against lesbian and gay people and the State will not do anything about it because it is a private religious group. We made it clear in the Anti-Austerity Alliance’s Bill that the provisions would apply to public and private organisations but we recognise that there is a religious requirement in certain occupations, for example, to be a chaplain, but that the requirement should not apply to other occupations.

Is it still okay to discriminate against atheists and people who do not profess a religion because that is exactly what the Bill will still allow? It seems that there is pussy-footing going on about schools that are still under religious patronage, which is the majority of schools in this country. I have a genuine question that must be answered because it will be asked. I know many primary schoolteachers who are atheists, who do not believe in any religion, but they are forced by their occupation to instruct Catholic teaching and assist with ceremonies such as first communion, or they try to avoid that class. Does the Minister of State, Deputy Ó Ríordáin, think that is acceptable? We must tackle religious control over schools that makes teachers fit in with religious instruction. That is wrong. It is a human right not to have a religion and not to be forced to believe in a certain religion or to have to pretend to believe in one. The Bill will continue to allow such teachers to be discriminated against and not to be promoted or not to be employed in the first place. We must say that is not okay.

We are dealing with the chilling effect of legislation on LGBT teachers, nurses and other professions, although it mainly applies to teaching. It is not the case that teachers are sacked. We know teachers have not been sacked according to that criterion.

It is more the case of a chat with the principal on a Monday morning, a discussion about toning it down, checking oneself in order that one does not appear to be gay and not giving any student the impression one is gay.

A huge number of issues remain for teachers. Is it possible that people will be discriminated against through the back door? There have been many cases in the United States of Catholic-run schools, which obviously are private schools, in which teachers were sacked because they were gay. While people knew they were gay for a number of years, when they got married they had publicly made their position clear - by marrying someone of the same sex - and those teachers were then sacked. However, it could also be found that somebody is not carrying out the ethos of the school because he or she is gay. Consequently, Members must challenge the entire education system in Ireland that allows schools to implement a particular religious ethos and to force employees to go along with that.

The Employment Equality (Amendment) Bill 2015 pertaining to section 37 was introduced by the Anti-Austerity Alliance and it extended the Employment Equality Act to all workers in services operated by religious institutions or under their direction. The only discrimination allowed would be in the religious organisation itself, where the position was a religious one, such as a priest, a preacher or whatever and these also are the only grounds that should obtain in this Bill. I ask the Minister of State to bring forward the Anti-Austerity Alliance Bill to Committee Stage as well, to enable the committee discuss both Bills because I believe ours is better. This is not a point-scoring issue but at the time, Anti-Austerity Alliance Members raised the point that such issues should not arise.

As for other issues that should be brought forward, I was very surprised the Minister of State did not use the opportunity provided by a miscellaneous Bill to deal with the issue about which parents were protesting outside the gates of Leinster House yesterday, namely, that schools can require a child to prove he or she is of a certain religion to secure a place in that school, that is, the baptismal certificate scenario. A simple repeal of section 7(3)(c) of the Equal Status Act could have been included in this Bill and that would then have addressed a huge issue. It is a major issue in my constituency, which has a multiethnic and a multi-religious population, as well as school shortages. This is when the baptismal certificate issue tends to be invoked but even were that not the case, parents should have choice about where they send their children to school and should not be obliged to sign up to admissions policies in schools. I have seen admissions policies for some schools in my constituency that would oblige me to lie to get my daughter into them, with requirements like believing in the Holy Spirit and so on. Some of them still are living in the Dark Ages and given that parents are required to go along with this when the population is much changed, why did the Minister of State not use this opportunity? I saw Labour Party Members outside the gates yesterday meeting those parents and giving a commitment they would address this issue but this Bill is the perfect place in which to so do. It would be quite simple, in that one would repeal that section of the Equal Status Act that allows schools to use religion as grounds for admission.

The other issue I wished to raise is the provision on rent supplement. I am delighted that discrimination in respect of rent supplement is being outlawed but the horse has bolted in this regard. While it is great that people will be unable to discriminate in the advertisements on Daft.ie or wherever people are looking, I refer to the scenario in which 20 people are in a queue for accommodation. I am told that getting rental accommodation is now like an audition for "The X Factor". One is placed before a panel of people and is quizzed about where one works, how much one earns, etc. Consequently, a simple process will be able to make null and void this change in the law whereby landlords will not advertise it but will simply exercise it. The reason they will be able to exercise such discretion is because there is such a shortage of rental accommodation. This must be remedied immediately by providing affordable and social housing, by bringing in rent controls and taking other serious measures to deal with the housing crisis, on which Members debated at length in the House over the past two nights. Unfortunately, however, many Government Members were not present for that debate. Nevertheless these are the only ways in which to outlaw such discrimination on rent allowance in reality.

Finally, I ask the Minister of State to reconsider this matter. I do not see why one should discriminate between public and private organisations, as the law should apply no matter for whom one works. The only reason I would maintain any right to discriminate would be in respect of a role that requires religion. If it does not require religion, one should have no right to discriminate. This would be a lot simpler and would protect people in many occupations. I again ask why discrimination is still being allowed against people who do not profess any religion and why teachers are being required to jump through hoops. One can still envisage people not being promoted or being discriminated against unless these changes are carried through.

Deputy Catherine Murphy

I wish to make a few comments. First, the changes to section 37 are welcome. While the wording is not ideal, I understand there is a limit because of the directive and consequently, it was not as open to change as perhaps would have been desired. Nevertheless, this legislation is moving Members along from a previous position and in many ways, the public has been ahead of the Oireachtas on many of these topics. Most people would find reprehensible the idea that one could be discriminated against on the basis of some of the grounds outlined here. This is a very positive development.

One issue that is not included in this Bill concerns access to schools for children who do not have baptismal certificates in a system in which 95% of schools are under Roman Catholic patronage. Honesty is a value one should be fostering among people and asking people to be dishonest simply to get their children into school is in conflict with such patronage and its values, which I find to be very odd. I am not religious myself and would describe myself perhaps as a humanist or an agnostic or something like that but in common with others like myself, this does not stop us from having values that are fairly honourable in terms of telling the truth and so on. The idea that one must have a religious moral standard of some sort is different to the reality of contemporary Ireland.

To revert to the Bill, it is difficult to get one's head around the idea that gay people, divorced parents, unmarried parents or a woman who has had an abortion all offered potential grounds for being technically dismissed, particularly from organisations that preach tolerance. I suspect many of the institutions will be pleased to see this change and I do not believe Members necessarily are grating against them. Moreover, it is important that one works towards changing things progressively. On the area pertaining to refusing people a home on the basis of the rent allowance, while we have many laws in Ireland their enforcement becomes problematic. I worry about people as the first thing that will be on someone's mind will be to try to get a place anywhere. When one begins to consider the organs of the State, such as for example the Private Residential Tenancies Board, it is overwhelmed at present and one must question how effective it will be in the short term. I suspect people will keep on ploughing ahead to try to find alternative accommodation and will not make the complaints. For example, I am starting to see changes in the way in which accommodation is being advertised.

I am not opposed to this being included but I want it to be included in a way that is meaningful and can bring about a change in culture and practice. We are now seeing in advertisements requests for work references and so on, which in many ways is shifting the dynamic of the refusal. We need to be careful about that to ensure it does not prevent us getting to the point we are trying to get to. The key issue for me is how this is going to be enforced.

Debate adjourned.

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht - Thursday, 19 Nov 2015