There has been an "inexplicable" fall this year in the number of claims of non-workplace discrimination made to the Equality Tribunal.
In the first half 2006, there were 67 complaints compared to 116 over the same periods last year. Just three cases of age discrimination cases were referred compared to 19 over the same period in 2005.
Tribunal director Melanie Pine said: "Every year so far there been a rise in cases. The nice thing is to believe everything is rosy but it's hard to say why it happened, it is inexplicable."
The preliminary figures from the Tribunal reflect an overall 40 per cent drop in referrals under the Equal Status acts, which prohibits discrimination in the provision of goods, services, accommodation, disposal of premises and education.
The number of cases brought by members of the Traveller Community on these grounds fell from 16 to seven.
The number of employment equality cases, however, remained at the peak seen last year.
The Tribunal makes rulings on discrimination on grounds of gender, marital status, family status, age, disability, race, religion, sexual orientation and membership of the Traveller community.
It's annual report published today showed all claims last year jumped 31 per cent with referrals for workplace discrimination continuing to dominate.
Claims made under the Employment Equality acts showed sharp increases in claims based on disability (71 per cent); gender (66 per cent) and race (61 per cent). Many claims involve more than one person.
Of 399 workplace claims, one third alleged dismissal on discriminatory grounds. The Tribunal assumed responsibility for theses cases from the Labour Court in 2004 and last year provides the first full-year figures.
Ms Pine noted there were 130 such cases in 2005 compared to just 50 addressed to the Labour Court in 2003.
She said the preponderance of cases where dismissal was on gender grounds was that some employers are still women for being pregnant.
Claims from workers in the private sector rose sharply from 164 to 267, while claims from the public sector remained around the same as 2004.
Ms Pine said a "disproportionate" amount of these claims came from smaller employers.
"It's to do with people [employers] not knowing what their obligations are. I assume it's to with them having less human resource management support," Ms Pine said.
Of 144 cases settled last year, 82 were equal status cases with awards totalling €38,400. In 34 per cent of cases findings in favour of the complainant.
Some 62 employment cases were dealt with yielding awards totalling €121,000, excluding the value of equal pay and arrears.