Supermarket chain Iceland has been ordered to pay €12,000 in compensation for discriminating against four Traveller women and girls that said they were told to leave one of its supermarkets without explanation two years ago.
Laura McDonnell, Megan McDonnell and two young girls were among five people that lodged complaints under the Equal Status Act over their interaction with an assistant manager and a security guard at an Iceland Foods Ireland Ltd’s shop in Finglas, Dublin 11 on November 27th 2020.
The four are to be paid €3,000 each, a sum the Workplace Relations Commission official in charge of the cases wrote was intended to be “proportionate and dissuasive” in light of the “emotional upset and embarrassment” each of the complainants had suffered as a result of the discrimination.
Their solicitor, Christopher McCann of the Free Legal Advice Centre (FLAC), said there had been no objective justification for asking his clients to leave the shop.
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He said the group were left “confused and embarrassed” by being put out of the shop and felt there was a “clear implication they had been involved in some kind of wrongdoing” — but complied with the direction of the workers and left the premises.
Megan McDonnell, the eldest of the group, gave evidence that young Traveller girls tended to have a “similar look”, including long hair, clothes and jewellery, and said that their accents tended to identify them as members of the community too.
“We were all speaking [approaching the door] and I believe the security guard heard our accents as well,” she said.
Ms McDonnell said that when she asked the assistant manager for an explanation for telling them to leave, he told her: “I don’t have to give you a reason. You must leave the shop.”
“I felt myself I’d done something wrong. I felt I’d done something I didn’t do,” she said.
Elizabeth-Jane Walsh BL, that appeared for the supermarket chain on the instructions of Michael Heslin of Miley & Miley LLP, told the tribunal the assistant manager had been dismissed by the supermarket over a year and a half ago for reasons unrelated to case and that the security guard had been involved in a traffic accident with a bus the week before the hearing.
The adjudicating officer, Brian Dalton, said it was within his power to summon the assistant manager to give evidence, but Ms Walsh said her client would “prefer closure in this matter” and would not be seeking an adjournment.
Voice and dress
John Moran, the supermarket chain’s area manager for Dublin, gave evidence that all its employees received a staff handbook setting out the business’s policy on discrimination, that he said specifically identifies discrimination against members of the Travelling community.
Mr McCann, for the complainant, asked Mr Moran in cross-examination how he knew Travellers were shopping in his stores.
“I can only assume they do — it’s open to the public,” the area manager replied, going on to add: “Some people do tell us: ‘I’m a Traveller.’”
Mr McCann put it to Mr Moran that an effective policy ought to inform a shop manager “how to identify a Traveller” for the purposes of avoiding discriminatory treatment.
“Not necessarily,” Mr Moran said.
He said a member of the Travelling community could “possibly” be identified by their voice or accent but not by visual characteristics.
“The security guard and manager are non-Irish nationals and would not be able to distinguish a Traveller’s accent to that of another customer in the shop,” Ms Walsh argued in her legal submission for the supermarket.
She said that other customers in the shop also wore jewellery and their hair long — visual characteristics the complainants had pointed to as markers of their heritage and culture.
In his decision in the case, adjudicating officer Brian Dalton wrote that without hearing the men’s evidence, “very little weight” could be given to the proposition that the assistant manager and security guard could not identify the group as members of the Travelling community by visual characteristics or accent.
Ms McDonnell, the lead complainant at last month’s hearing, had given “very credible evidence that she was identified easily”, he wrote.
“The CCTV footage also corroborates that without any explanation and in contrast to other young people in the store at the same time the complainant was treated differently,” he wrote.
“[Iceland] did engage in prohibited conduct and I find in favour of the complainant,” wrote Mr Dalton in the decision on Megan McDonnell’s complaint.
“I have had regard to all the circumstances of this case, the emotional upset and public embarrassment… while also considering what is a proportionate amount. I award the complainant €3,000 in compensation for the effects of the prohibited conduct,” he wrote.
He made the same findings and compensation order in three other three cases.
The Free Legal Advice Centre’s Traveller Legal Service, that represented the group, confirmed a decision in respect of a fifth complainant, a minor, has not yet been issued.