Ageism on rise, says equality body

Ageism has overtaken racism as the most common reason for complaints about discrimination in the workplace, the Equality Authority has found.

At the end of November, age-related complaints accounted for 62 of the 264 case files being dealt with by the agency in connection with the Employment Equality Act. This compared with 52 complaints of racism in the workplace.

Niall Crowley, Equality Authority chief executive, said it was not the case that the number of race-related complaints had fallen. Age-related complaints had increased, particularly when it concerned retirement age, he said. "All age complaints relate to older people and they raise issues of promotion, access to employment and dismissal. Quite a lot of age cases are coming forward in relation to retirement ages and age limits for voluntary severance packages, so there is quite a significant challenge emerging in relation to age limits in the workplace."

Mr Crowley said it was worrying that racism-related complaints had not reduced in the wake of various awareness campaigns such as the annual anti-racism in the workplace week.

"It is a continuing trend, with instances of quite severe exploitation of migrant workers. A lot of the cases relate to working conditions in terms of excessive working hours, lack of access to leave entitlements, issues of dismissal and harassment, and discrimination in access to work as well."

Some 47 of the 264 cases before the agency involved complaints about gender bias. "Gender equality legislation has been in place for 30 years. So why is gender the third highest ground for complaint?" he asked.

The cases related to issues of promotion, pregnancy-related dismissal, sexual harassment and equal pay. "There's a persistence to these issues that has to be described as disturbing and should really stimulate a review of the legislation." Sexist attitudes were still "deeply entrenched", he added.

He said it was clear that this State was falling behind other EU states in taking positive actions to reduce discrimination.

Legislation should require employers to put equality policies in place and to provide equality training, he said. "There are steps we can take. We can be more proactive in preventing discrimination and we need to catch up with leading members of the European Union, including Northern Ireland and Britain."