I thank Senator O'Toole for assisting the joint committee this morning. Today's business is a discussion on the National Framework Committee for Equal Opportunities with Mr. Niall Crowley, chief executive officer of the Equality Authority. I welcome Mr. Crowley and Mr. Richard Fallon, head of development, to the meeting. Before inviting Mr. Crowley to commence the presentation, I draw his attention and that of Mr. Fallon to the fact that while members of the committee have absolute privilege, the same privilege does not extend to them. Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official, either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. I apologise to Mr. Crowley for the delay in commencing the meeting and invite him to make his submission to the committee.
National Framework Committee for Equal Opportunities: Presentation.
Mr. Niall Crowley
My verbal submission is based on documentation — publications by the national framework committee — previously circulated to the joint committee.
I thank members for giving me the opportunity to brief them on the work of the national framework committee, a social partnership initiative, which brings together representatives of congress, IBEC, the Health Service Executive, the Local Government Management Services Board, the Equality and Diversity Network and the Departments of Justice, Equality and Law Reform and Finance. It is convened by the Equality Authority through which much of its developmental work on the workplace is carried out.
I will first provide the committee with information on the stimulus for the national framework committee, its work and the business case emerging for it. The stimulus comes from the implementation of the Employment Equality Acts, in particular, but also from the Equal Status Acts. The Employment Equality Acts prohibit discrimination in the workplace and vocational training, while the Equal Status Acts prohibit discrimination in the provision of goods and services, education and accommodation. The Acts are unique in that they present new challenges to Irish workplaces on nine grounds, namely, gender, marital status, family status, age, disability, sexual orientation, race, religion and membership of the Traveller community. They are also unique and challenging in the sense that they place a holistic perspective on organisations. For the first time equality is a consideration not just in terms of employees but also in terms of the customers or clients of organisations.
The first stimulus for the national framework committee comes from the volume of casework in which the Equality Authority is involved, illustrating that there are significant issues of discrimination in the Irish workplace. For example, under the Employment Equality Act, we have a large volume of case files based on the ground of race, a situation that has emerged rapidly given the presence of migrant workers in the workplace. We also have a large volume of case files based on the ground of gender, an illustration of its remarkable persistence given that gender equality legislation has been in place for more than 30 years. The number of cases brought on the ground of disability is also very high, reflecting inflexibility in the workplace and a failure to make reasonable accommodation for employees with disabilities. The fourth highest is discrimination on the ground of age, particularly for older workers in seeking access to work and promotion within it.
The Equal Status Act provides a significant stimulus for the national framework committee, although that was not the position initially. One would normally expect two thirds of the Equality Authority's case files to be workplace related and one third service provision related. Currently, the number of files relating to service provision is greater than the number relating to the workplace, reflecting how new the Equal Status Act is in the Irish context and how slow companies have been in gearing up to meet their responsibilities in that regard. We also have a large volume of files relating to public sector service provision, educational establishments, insurance and accommodation.
The other evidence of the need for the national framework committee comes from the recent CSO survey on equality that surveyed the population aged 18 years and over. It found that 12.5% of the population had reported experiencing discrimination in the previous two years, 5.1% had reported work-related discrimination, while 9% had reported discrimination in accessing services. There is, therefore, a high level of potential demand in regard to equality infrastructure. Six out of ten people had taken no action on foot of their experience. There is a long way to go before that demand will be felt by and responded to by the equality infrastructure. In that context, it is important that we are involved not only in dealing with issues of discrimination but that we also develop responses within the workplace to prevent discrimination in the first place. That is where the national framework committee comes in, with the important role being played by the social partners and the leadership being provided by the social partners in regard to equality in the workplace.
The national framework committee was established under the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness and continued under Sustaining Progress. Initially it was put in place to respond to challenges posed by the new equality legislation and to assist in promoting equal opportunities in the workplace. Initial work focused on testing new responses to some of the new grounds, in particular through clusters and networks of enterprises in terms of equality for older workers, accommodation of workers with disabilities, training courses on equality legislation, management of diversity and resources for its management. During that time a consensus emerged across the Equality Authority and the social partners that what was required was a focus on institutional systems, practices and procedures to promote and support a planned and systematic approach to workplace equality, to encourage workplaces to move away from ad hoc and reactive responses to issues of discrimination to informal processes based on good will and plans and systems in regard to it, and to put in place a workplace equality infrastructure in order that workplaces would formally indicate their commitment to equality through an equality policy, build the staff capacity to implement the policy through equality and diversity training, and create a context where staff could apply these skills by having an equality action plan.
On that basis we worked with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and IBEC to produce guidelines for employment equality policies, equality and diversity training and equal status policies which focus on the customer. We also produced a code of practice in regard to specific issues of sexual harassment and harassment. Those are the materials circulated.
The work in supporting planned and systematic approaches to equality has had a particular focus on small and medium enterprises. In terms of the guidance we have developed, we have done particular work to support small and medium enterprises to implement it. We did research that identified the key barriers within such enterprises. These were barriers of fear that doing something formal about equality would provoke tensions and generate responses that they did not want, barriers involving the costs associated with it and not having access to the necessary resources, and that enterprises did not see the relevance to their business.
We tried to respond with a scheme to provide free consultancy services for small and medium enterprises to implement the guidelines, put in place equality policies for customers and employees, and develop equality and diversity training. We have received a remarkable response in that a small amount of money and a small resource have broken the fear in moving to more formal approaches, given them the initial resources to be able to do something practical about it and begun to build a business case in their own eyes from their own experience in relation to it. In the first year approximately 70 companies came forward. In the second 159 companies did so. This year we have allocated 80% of the resources available to us. Therefore, we could do much more with more resources.
A broad range of companies are coming forward in the manufacturing and services sectors, including retail, wholesale, insurance, architectural and engineering, IT and property companies, as well as child care initiatives. It has been a very successful initiative in terms of small scale resources generating a significant shift in the way small and medium enterprises approach equality. The equality policy has stimulated downstream a whole host of actions. The initiative did not just create a policy, put it on the shelf and leave it there. It has built a process within companies.
We have tried to adopt an approach to develop capacity around planning for equality also. We have developed a small scheme for employment equality reviews within companies. Last year four companies with in excess of 6,000 employees completed these reviews. We provided resources for them to have a look at their workplace policies, procedures, practices and workplace perceptions to see what impact they had on equality across the nine grounds and what actions might be required to enhance that impact. We have seen very strong equality action plans emerging in these companies. We will be going back in 12 months' time to assess to what extent they have been implemented and what impact they have had.
The final element of the work of the national framework committee focuses on an external infrastructure. The equality legislation is so new that the support infrastructure for companies still remains very limited. We have tried to work with business networks and trade unions in order that they can play a role as part of that external infrastructure. IBEC, congress and individual trade unions could play a role and have a capacity to support their members to effectively promote equality within the workplace. This year we have supported congress, IBEC and the Health Service Executive to conduct reviews of the work they have done on equality and supporting equality across their sectors in order that they also can develop an action plan for the next three years in terms of actions they would take to develop resources, supports and training for their members.
In the context of the business case for this iniative, we were relying very much on anecdote in trying to sell these ideas in that they would help companies to recruit people in a tight labour market and to retain them at a point when it is costly to recruit people. However, anecdote does not convince very strongly. What convinces is practical experience, as we have seen in regard to SMEs, but also some hard figures. The first piece of work we did on this was using the ESRI survey of over 5,000 employees in Ireland which was carried out by the Forum on the Workplace of the Future. One of the questions asked was whether companies had equality policies, but they did not track anything in terms of the impact of those policies and the analysis of data. We analysed the data and found that three quarters of all employees worked in organisations where there was a formal explicit policy on equal opportunities. There are more in the public than the private sector. There are more in larger companies than small and medium enterprises. However, the key finding was that in those companies equality policies were strongly and unambiguously associated with lower levels of work stress, higher levels of a sense of fairness and equality within the workplace and higher levels of job satisfaction and organisational commitment. It was the first time data had been analysed in an Irish context to show that equality policies, in other words, the basis for a planned and systematic approach, had positive effects on employee well-being and commitment and, to that extent, had positive impacts on organisational performance. It is the beginnings of a quantitative business case for equality. We are doing further work with the National Centre for Partnership Performance this year on two further research projects to try to strengthen that link. We have proved that there is such a link. We now need to tease out the benefits, particularly to the bottom line, which will be important.
I thank Mr. Crowley. How does Ireland compare to its European neighbours?
Mr. Crowley
Ireland has led the way in the last period. There is a catch-up because of the European Union directives, the framework employment directive, the race directive and the amended equal treatment directive. In the past five years the rest of Europe has largely looked to Ireland to see how they should manage a multi-ground agenda. It has looked at the model of the Equality Authority and that of the Employment Equality Act and the Equal Status Act. We have been seen in a hugely positive light in that regard. However, there is now some slippage. We are seeing in a number of European member states a move to further evolve equality legislation, particularly in Northern Ireland and Great Britain which have led the way with the introduction of positive duties, which are important in terms of the idea of planned and systematic approaches to equality, requiring in particular the public sector to have due regard to equality in carrying out its functions. That is going to be the new generation of equality legislation and something we will need to look to in the future.
It is always interesting to discuss the issue of equality. A number of years ago those who discussed it equated it with the gender argument, but it is more far-reaching than this. Gender forms only a small part, but when one uses the word "equality", it is gender people think of.
It is more difficult to quantify the stage of development we are at in attitudes than to point to statistics in various areas. While it can be argued that one cannot legislate for attitudes, it is possible to legislate to ensure one person's attitude will not adversely affect someone else. It is something we must get our heads around. It is no longer a remote question to ask what progress we have made on the attitudes people hold. I continue to find that where people demand to be treated on an equal basis, they are told they can work for as long as their male colleagues. We must start to acknowledge in equality legislation that in some circumstances granting equal opportunities and status does not necessarily mean we have recognised people have particular difficulties. This can be the case with disability, gender, family commitments and the position of Travellers. The European model is developing by examining what positive supports should be provided to ensure equality.
I have found in the past year that bullying is becoming a more significant problem in the workplace. I do not know if it is related to the fact that we are becoming more competitive or that some take equality to mean a person can say what he or she likes to someone else or treat him or her in whatever way he or she wants and expect the other person not to feel insulted or degraded. Now that we are equal we are supposed to be equally tough skinned. What are we going to do about this problem? A programme must be put in place. Despite what has been done up to this point, the problem has become far more prevalent. While every company I know of a significant size has a policy on bullying, such companies tend to be reluctant to do anything about the problem. I would like to know what the Equality Authority's experience is.
Even though there are more women in the workforce, there continues to be an element of dependency in the context of social welfare benefits. Where the woman is at work, it is the man who is determined as the dependant, even though both paid full contributions. Does this mean an individual has to take a case, as happened with regard to equality for married women, or can the Equality Authority take action? I have submitted a number of letters on the matter and I am in the process of feeling my way with the Department. Will this become a far more significant issue? I would like to know what direction we are taking.
Does the Deputy mean there should be separate payments eventually?
I sometimes assume people know what I am talking about when perhaps they do not. Like my husband, I pay my social welfare contributions at the full rate. If I am out of work and claiming benefit and if within a 12 month period, my partner must also claim, one of us will be treated as a dependant and receive a lower rate of payment. However, we will both have paid into the system at the full rate. I have submitted a number of letters to the Department in an effort to tease the matter out.
If one partner receives the allowance for both, he or she may have the other living in poverty.
We are now straying into the divorce courts.
Mr. Crowley
There are different stories to tell about how advanced we are in our attitudes. The CSO equality survey suggests we have a significant problem, as 12.5% reported discrimination in the past two years. This is a very high rate in the European context. It indicates that we have serious problems of behaviour and attitude. However, we have been encouraged by a number of developments, especially shifts on sexual orientation grounds, which reflect significant changes in attitude. We are now considering civil partnership and marriage for gay and lesbian people in a constructive, equality-focused debate, something we could not have done a number of years ago. It represents a new acceptance of diversity and the need for equality. While there is significant casework on discrimination against migrant workers, the uptake by companies of the materials we produce each anti-racist workplace week is very strong and reflective of a great degree of good will. While great change is required, it is beginning to happen and simply needs to continue to be stimulated. While one cannot legislate for attitudes, equality legislation plays a clear role in changing behaviour. Changed behaviours create new contexts. Inevitably, new attitudes follow.
The point that equality does not mean everybody has to be the same is a crucial one. The one positive duty set out in our legislation recognises this through the disability grant, whereby employers and service providers are obliged to make adjustments for people with disabilities or provide special facilities and treatment for customers with a disability, subject to disproportionate burden and nominal cost exemptions in the provision of goods and services. However, it is a crucial acknowledgement that people are different and that difference has practical implications for the way we employ people with disabilities and provide services. We should be able to change to adapt to people rather than require them to adapt to an unchanging workplace or service provider.
It is of great relevance across all nine grounds that we have a positive duty to make reasonable accommodation for people with family responsibilities, carers, older people and ethnic minorities, including Travellers. While it is a very useful concept to have enshrined in the legislation, we could usefully expand it further. The Labour Court expanded it in a case in which it acknowledged the special vulnerability of migrant workers to discriminatory dismissal. It stated employers were required to take account of cultural and linguistic diversity in developing disciplinary policies and procedures. That was the beginning of a reasonable accommodation for difference. Diversity in the workplace and customer base means we approach matters differently rather than making everyone the same, which is an impossible task.
The Equality Authority deals with a subset of bullying, the significant issue of harassment and sexual harassment. It is not confined to sexual harassment but also emerges on other grounds for people with disabilities, older people, gays and lesbians. It is a significant workplace issue. Most cases reveal a situation where either bad policies were in place or good policies were not put into practice. In most instances, the complainant won the case because the policy or its operation was inadequate. That is why the first code of practice we produced was on sexual harassment. Due to the scale of the problem, we believed employers were not gearing up to their liabilities on the issue. This was bad for them and for business. It was a case of employers not paying enough attention to getting the policies and procedures right. They were not investing enough in creating a workplace culture where harassment did not emerge. It requires a proactive effort to shift such a culture. It is very much a cultural phenomenon that permits that type of relationship and trivialises it when it happens. We had a serious sexual harassment case in which the manager of the person affected claimed it was only a joke. This makes it hard to bring cases forward.
On social welfare, the authority has been blocked by an exemption in the Equal Status Act, whereby provisions introduced on foot of other legislation are not covered by the Act. In the social welfare area provisions are often introduced on foot of legislation. We have not been able to act on some of the issues brought to the authority's attention. There is a review of the social welfare code and the Equal Status Act. We hope it might be the stimulus for change, not just in compliance with the Act but also respecting its ambitions and obligations.
I thank Mr. Crowley for his wide-ranging and helpful presentation. Some of the gender equality issues raised by Deputy Lynch have not gone away. The 1970s workplace culture where managers said they did not employ women is gone. It is gone because people are afraid of the law. In some cases the only way to change attitudes is by changing the law. However, the gender issue has moved up the line. I receive correspondence and telephone calls from many women in positions of responsibility who are being suppressed. It may not be harassment or bullying but they are being suppressed by middle management males who are generally afraid of women. Many men in middle management are afraid of women taking their jobs. To them, women are not supposed to be that bright or pushy but to know their place. Many of the women in contact with me do not want to make a big issue out of this because they believe it shows weakness, yet they are being suppressed in their role in the development of enterprises.
A well worked and structured complaints procedure must be established in all enterprises. It does not necessarily need to be called a complaints procedure for harassment or bullying. It must, however, include a process for an individual who believes he or she is not getting a fair deal and is being treated in an unacceptable manner. It must be the right of every worker at every level. There are nationally known people running organisations of distinction dealing with grey-suited middle-aged males chairing committees who are steamrolling them. More support is needed for women who suffer harassment in the workplace. If an individual claims it was only a joke, it must be said to a procedures board, not to the person who made the complaint.
The civil partnership issue is a cause of concern for those in various, not just gay, relationships. Travellers often inform Members — there is an informal committee between some Members and Travellers' groups — that they are never presented in a positive light. Every three months I receive documentation from one of the Travellers' groups highlighting its various activities and achievements. A budget should be allocated to presenting Travellers making positive contributions in unusual ways.
Although I support the Equality Authority's guidelines on Travellers' rights, there is no reason a publican cannot put a Traveller out of his or her pub if the Traveller is not shaping up and acting properly. We allowed that argument to develop as a case of "for or against" Travellers. Vintners were never told that if an individual was acting in an unacceptable way, he or she should be barred from a licensed premises, whether Traveller or otherwise. It was the blanket issue that caused the problem.
Mr. Crowley
The gender equality issue has not gone away. It has been remarkably persistent as a ground under the Employment Equality Act. There has been legislation for a long time in other jurisdictions. We must consider their experience and the concept of positive duties. In other jurisdictions a similar point to ours was reached where a pure focus on anti-discrimination measures was not adequate. There must be a shift to positive duties if we are to break the persistence of gender inequality, which does not just include the casework on gender equality but also issues such as sexual harassment, promotional prospects, pregnancy-rated discrimination and equal pay. If I appeared before the committee 20 years ago, I would have listed the same issues.
The marriage bar was a great symbol of the exclusion of women from the workplace. It has been replaced by a child bar. It is disturbing to see the issue of pregnancy-related discrimination so high. Women are being pushed out of the workforce for having children. It raises the issues of who is caring for children and flexible working hours.
Discrimination in the workplace has moved up the value chain from where it was 20 years ago. They will not say so publicly but they work on the basis that though a woman will be absent while having children she will be with the company for 30 or 40 years afterward. There are fewer problems in such cases but the widespread existence of contract and short-term work creates difficulties. Are there any statistics on that?
Mr. Crowley
There are no statistics but there certainly is a logic to that argument. There is a fear surrounding women having children. Breaches even occur in the case of migrant workers in the form of a lack of access to maternity leave and pregnancy-related discrimination is very high. The treatment of women who tell their employer they are pregnant is often abrupt and brutal. These are big issues which need to be dealt with.
There should be a basic minimum of complaints procedures in all enterprises. I am surprised there are not more such procedures because employers have a liability for their employees' behaviour under the Employment Equality Act 1998. They can discharge that liability by taking practical steps to ensure discrimination does not happen and that it is addressed when it does. That is why the absence of policies and procedures in this area astounds me. If employers adopted a more formal response to the legislation they might also gain some of the business benefits not only from dealing with discrimination when it happens but from preventing it and proactively promoting equality. That is where the business gains lie and it is what we need to sell.
Positive action continues to be necessary to give support to women. The absence of women from senior management positions is a particular problem. We look to the national women's strategy, currently in production, to generate a new impetus behind that and to provide new supports for women.
We see civil partnership as a key equality issue in terms of tackling disadvantage. We have seen it applied to sexual orientation and it can be applied to other domestic arrangements. The disadvantages of the current climate for gay and lesbian couples arise in the fields of taxation and inheritance, the latter particularly at moments of vulnerability such as when a partner dies, especially where there is a child. A range of difficulties is created by the absence of civil partnership.
There is a broader equality issue whereby our partnership legislation, in not fully respecting gay and lesbian relationships as it does heterosexual relationships, gives a licence to disrespect gay and lesbian people. Civil partnerships would be a major step forward, not just in terms of easing practical difficulties but in securing equality for gay and lesbian people. We are very encouraged by the working group on domestic partnership that has been established in the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform and we are involved in that work. It is due to report in October with options in this regard and we look forward to action on foot of it.
There is widespread and persistent discrimination against Travellers. Such discrimination is the most common ground for cases we have taken under the Equal Status Act 2000, which covered licensed premises, though we still have some cases in that area. It also covers access to schools, insurance, accommodation and shops. Therefore, it is embedded.
Is there a jurisdiction from which we may take a best practice example?
Mr. Crowley
We study what other jurisdictions do with regard to minority groups. We examine how we can deal with cultural diversity in an Irish context. That does not only apply to Travellers but to other groups. Some of the best practices in the development of new relationships between Travellers and settled people, or minority ethnic groups and majority ethnic groups, have emerged around how we deal with cultural difference and to what extent we demonstrate a respect for cultural difference in order that we adapt to take account of it. We are only beginning to take cognisance of that but it is the way to improve relationships and build respect in the way institutions deal with a cultural minority like Travellers. We can see that happening in some schools where, for example, there are very good practices. We have a long way to go in that area and it needs significant leadership in order that we adapt as a society to cultural difference. Given the diversity of cultures there is obviously a greater responsibility on us now. There is a real opportunity to achieve our goal as long as in responding to the new cultural diversity we do not forget the old cultural diversity.
The Order of Business takes place in the Dáil at 10.30 a.m.
I will be brief. I compliment the Equality Authority on the great work it does. In a workplace where the equality programme is implemented there is bound to be better job satisfaction. The idea of giving free consultative advice on how to implement equality is very good because it involves working with people rather than coming down on them with a heavy hand and telling them they must do this and that.
I will ask a question on people with disabilities. There seems still to be huge discrimination against people with disabilities. It is difficult for disabled people to gain employment at all because for employers the easy way is not to employ them. Can Mr. Crowley comment on their prospects for employment and whether they are discriminated against when they are employed?
Mr. Crowley
There is major discrimination against people with disabilities. That comes through in the case files where I think they constitute the third highest ground for cases under the Employent Equality Act 1998. The biggest issues are access to employment and dismissal, the latter of which happens when people have a hidden disability and it becomes known. A wider issue concerns inflexibility, seen in cases we have taken for failure to make adjustments for a person with a disability so that they can make their full contribution. These are very low-cost adjustments but they are very often just not done. We have taken cases where employers were not willing to spend €500 on technology that would assist the disabled person. There is fear and inflexibility and there seems to be an inability to talk to the person with the disability to identify his or her needs and respond to them. That is also evident under the Equal Status Act 2000, where many cases have been taken on grounds of disability. Access to schools, transport and public services is also relevant. The core issue is reasonable accommodation and to what extent, institutionally, we can shift to design things in a way that people can use.
My question relates to bullying and the dilemma faced by a person taking a case, knowing that having done so their job will disappear anyway. That does not happen in major institutions. In the public service, making a formal complaint of bullying will not cost somebody their job but the complaint remains on file and if a person wants to progress it may be taken into account. In many cases it is not about the fear of exposure, nor the fear of actually confronting the person who is bullying but that it will have a bigger effect on a person's career than on that of the bullies.
Mr. Crowley
The key provision is the prohibition on victimisation in the legislation. It is prohibited for an employer or service provider to treat somebody badly because that person may have done something lawful on foot of an experience of discrimination as defined in the equality legislation. The tribunal and we take victimisation very seriously and have won many such cases. That is crucial if the legislation is to be effective, because we must eliminate that fear.
I thank Mr. Crowley and Mr. Fallon for attending the meeting of the joint committee this morning and for updating us with valuable data and information. Members may wish to note that consideration of the Estimates for 2006 will commence in select committee at 9.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 10 May.
The joint committee adjourned at 10.30 a.m. sine die.