Couple with guide dog allege they were turned away from Kilkenny hotel, WRC told

A couple say they were turned away by a Kilkenny hotel when they mentioned they were bringing a guide dog, an equality hearing at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) has heard.

Mr Kevin Ryan told adjudication officer Andrew Heavey that he phoned Kilkenny House Hotel several days before a planned stay in November 2019 to mention his girlfriend’s guide dog “out of courtesy”.

He made his booking on a third-party website, which was then confirmed by an email which asked whether he had “any special requests”.

“I picked up the phone to tell them I’m bringing the guide dog,” he said. That’s when the trouble started,” he said.

The complaint had been raised on behalf of Mr Ryan’s girlfriend, Ms Pamela Keogh, who is visually impaired and has been using the guide dog for assistance for a number of years.

After initially speaking to a member of staff by phone, Mr Ryan said he then attended the hotel on the Freshford Road in Kilkenny City in person.

“Eventually I got the manager on the phone. He said, ‘Look, I’m going to cancel your booking. I have dogs myself and those dogs will be barking and going mad if you bring your guide dog,’” Mr Ryan said.

“I said: ‘But you can’t do that, it’s a guide dog,’’’

He told the remote hearingon Tuesday that the manager then replied: “I don’t want to hear any more about it.”

“That was the end of the matter. I had to go and find a different hotel,” Mr Ryan said.

“I reckon he could tell maybe by my tone that I was annoyed. He just wanted to end the call.”

Solicitor Mary Molloy, representing the Kilkenny House Hotel, said the “unhappy position” was that the manager was too ill to attend Tuesday’s hearing.

Outlining the hotel’s position, she said: “Ms Keogh’s booking was made online. Under the conditions of that particular offer the conditions specifically specified that pets are not allowed. Mr Ryan would in no circumstances have been unaware that his booking was not an ordinary booking in line with the offer he was seeking to avail of” – calling it an “entirely different booking procedure altogether”.

“These bookings can only be accommodated in specific rooms that do not have carpets, that do not have stairs or other impediments, that are equally accessible and are located at ground floor level,” she said.

“The room on offer was not a specifically designated room which could accommodate animals, nor was such a room requested in circumstances where the person making the booking surely was aware that they required a specific type of room.”

“In this case the receptionist’s response wasn’t that the room could not be availed of by the parties. What she was trying to get across was that the specific room being booked by Mr Ryan could not accommodate a guide dog.”

Ms Molloy said it was her client’s position that an accessible room “simply wasn’t available” because all four were booked out and that ”under no circumstances was there any discrimination against Ms Keogh and the guide dog”.

The parties agreed with adjudication officer Andrew Heavey’s suggestion that the matter be adjourned for six to eight weeks in the hope that the hotel manager would be well enough to give evidence at that point, with the date to be arranged in due course by the WRC.