The First Minister has announced plans for a single equality Bill for Northern Ireland.
At a conference organised by the Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities, Mr David Trimble said the Executive would begin consultation on the proposed legislation, which will bring together anti-discrimination laws governing race, religion, gender, disability or political beliefs.
The new legislation would take into account the latest EU directives on discrimination in the workplace and beyond.
There are currently a number of anti-discrimination laws in force in the North, and the First Minister said these should be brought together as "retaining separate labels for victims tends to focus more on the labels than the individual". "We wish to ensure fairness," he said, "but we must at the same time be careful not to do this at the cost of encumbering employers with needless restriction and obligations." Junior Minister Mr Denis Haughey said he hoped consultation on the Bill could begin next month but officials said later they believed it might be summer before the process starts.
Mr Haughey said many recommendations had already been made and that, as well as considering British legislation, the Executive would "also be looking at the approaches which have been adopted south of the Border in its fairly innovative integrated equality legislation". Mr Peter Bunting, the assistant general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, noted that the directives specifically exempted the recruitment of teachers in the North from provisions on religious discrimination.
This was as unfair as restrictions in the Republic, which limited employment prospects in teaching, the Civil Service, the police service and other public employment to those who spoke Irish, he claimed.