Measures aimed at protecting vulnerable individuals or groups should not be misused by a small minority, the Minister of State for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr Willie O'Dea, warned yesterday.
He was speaking at the launch of the annual report of the Office of the Director of Equality Investigations which has been renamed ODEI, the Equality Tribunal.
Later, Mr O'Dea told The Irish Times he did not think the law or the tribunal was being misused at present. "But the equality machinery is unpopular with some people because it's new. I don't want it to be undermined by people bad-mouthing it."
The launch was also the occasion for the announcement of the new name for the organisation. Under the statute setting it up, the body that investigates complaints of discrimination is called the Office of the Director of Equality Investigations, but its director, Ms Melanie Pine, said there was considerable confusion in the public mind between it and the Equality Authority, which is a lobbying and advisory organisation.
"We have found that complainants could not understand that we cannot provide advice, respondents did not understand that we are impartial, and commentators were perplexed at why we did not discuss decisions.
"The decisions of equality officers in the ODEI are impartial and based solely on the current legislation, the case law and the evidence of the parties," she said.
She pointed out that there had been a 600 per cent increase in the volume of cases referred to it between 2000 and 2001.
Gender remained the single biggest ground cited in employment- related cases, while membership of the Traveller community accounted for almost three quarters of the cases under the equal status legislation. Of these, 85 per cent related to alleged discrimination in the provision of service in pubs, hotels and clubs.
Commenting on these figures, Mr O'Dea said one would expect the level of complaints to reduce as the level of awareness of equality issues increased.
He also said the Oireachtas had provided an appeal to the courts for parties who felt aggrieved by the outcome of any particular decision by an equality officer. "I would expect that in the future we will see some such appeals," he said.
In a response to the report, Mr Tadg O'Sullivan, chief executive of the Vintners Federation of Ireland, said the figures "confirm our view that elements of the Travelling community are using the Equal Status Act as a gravy train. There is a contingent of Travellers using the Act for personal financial gain through an orchestrated campaign to seek to be refused service in pubs by acting in a provocative manner."
Mr O'Dea told The Irish Times that there were very few successful appeals of decisions to the courts, suggesting the respondents accepted them.