Traveller family lose claim of discrimination against Catholic bishop

A claim of discrimination against a Catholic bishop by a Traveller family over their alleged treatment at a Holy Communion mass five years ago has been dismissed by the Workplace Relations Commission.

The WRC ruled that it had no legal authority to adjudicate on 10 individual complaints by members of the Sherlock family that they had been discriminated against by the then bishop of Galway Martin Drennan when they attempted to attend the mass on May 23rd, 2015.

The family, which includes six children, also alleged they were harassed at the ceremony.

They claimed Traveller women were excluded from the mass based on a dress code, even though other women who were wearing elements of clothing that were deemed inadmissible were not asked to leave the church.

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The Sherlocks said they were barred due to the length of their dresses and skirts and their necklines.

Bishop Drennan, who retired as bishop of Galway in July 2016, rejected all allegations that he had discriminated against them on grounds of gender, race and their membership of the Traveller community under Section 21 of the Equal Status Act 2000.

The WRC agreed with a preliminary legal argument raised by representatives for Bishop Drennan that the Holy Communion mass provided by the Catholic Church as a religious service did not constitute a service within the meaning of the legislation.

As a consequence, WRC adjudicator, Louise Boyle, said Bishop Drennan had not engaged in prohibited conduct.

Detailed evidence in the case was not heard as a result of the WRC’s ruling on the preliminary challenge raised by the bishop’s legal representatives.

They claimed it was never the intention of the Oireachtas for religious services to fall within the jurisdiction of the legislation.

The Sherlock family had argued that the Catholic Church was the provider of a service as under the legislation a mass was a “service or facility of any nature which is available to the public generally or a section of the public”.

They said there was no exclusion clause in the Equal Status Act 2000 that allowed negative discrimination to occur.

However, the WRC said religious services or sacraments did not come within the ambit of the legislation as otherwise it would be unlawful for churches to refuse the sacrament of matrimony to persons who were divorced or of the same sex, or similarly to only ordain men as priests.

“There seems to be no reason in law or logic to differentiate between these types of religious services and a Holy Communion mass,” said Ms Boyle.

She added: “If the Oireachtas had intended to apply the principle of equal status, enshrined in the Act, to all of these situations, it would have said so in express terms.”