An “abusive” Dublin taxi driver has been ordered to pay €12,000 to a visually impaired couple for refusing them service and driving off without them and their guide dog at Christmas time.
Anthony Clarke and his partner Lisa O’Donovan told an equality hearing the driver, Abiodun Dongo, was “abusive and aggressive” and left them “hugely embarrassed and humiliated” in the December 27th, 2024, incident at Heuston Station in Dublin.
Clarke, who is blind, and O’Donovan, who is also visually impaired, have now secured findings of disability discrimination in breach of the Equal Status Act 1998 against Dongo at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC).
The couple had travelled from Cork that morning with the assistance of Clarke’s guide dog and approached Dongo in his car at the railway station’s taxi rank, they said in their complaints to the tribunal.
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Dongo “reacted abruptly” to their request for a taxi service and said he would not take the guide dog, they said.
The taxi man shouted at the couple in an “aggressive and abusive” manner and then “wound up the car window and drove off abruptly”, they told the commission.
Clarke and O’Donovan said they were both “hugely embarrassed and humiliated by the experience”.
The complaints were called on twice for hearing in January and April this year in Dublin.
Adjudication officer Valerie Murtagh noted in decision documents published today that Dongo “did not attend”.
She wrote that both Clarke and O’Donovan were “credible” witnesses and upheld their complaints on the basis of their uncontested evidence.
They were both “discriminated against on grounds of disability” and were also denied reasonable accommodation by Dongo, she found.
“I find in favour of the complainant,” Murtagh wrote in both cases.
She directed payment of €6,000 each to Clarke and O’Donovan for the effects of the discrimination.
“I further order the respondent to ensure, going forward, that he is in compliance with the relevant equality legislation,” Murtagh concluded.
