ANALYSIS:Will the end of the Celtic Tiger also spell the end of independent monitoring of State institutions, asks Carol Coulter
THE DISTRIBUTION of the cuts in the Department of Justice budget is giving rise to fears that agendas other than financial are at work. Thirty-five bodies and programmes fall under the control of the department, which also administers the legal aid scheme, the probation service and the immigration service and funds the office of the Minister for Integration. All but a handful saw cuts in their budgets, and the overall budget of the department was cut by 4 per cent as against the 2008 allocation.
However, two cuts stand out in comparison to the overall figure, a cut of 24 per cent in the allocation of the Human Rights Commission and of 43 per cent in that of the Equality Authority.
The Equality Authority is hit by a double whammy in the Budget. In the decentralisation programme 13 bodies are listed as having an advance party in place, but permanent accommodation is not currently affordable, and no further decentralisation is taking place. The Equality Authority stands alone as the sole organisation listed for decentralisation, where permanent accommodation is not currently affordable. Yet it is required to move 15 of its staff out of Dublin to continue the decentralisation process.
Fifteen Equality Authority staff are already in Roscrea as part of the decentralisation programme. However, this does not mean that 15 existing staff moved from Dublin. As has happened elsewhere under decentralisation, people moved within departments to get the numbers right. Those unable, for family and other reasons, to move from Dublin moved elsewhere within the public service, and were replaced by new people already in or near the decentralised centre.
If few of the existing Dublin-based staff are able to move to Roscrea, which is likely, decentralisation will mean that 15 trained and experienced Dublin-based staff will be replaced in Roscrea by up to 15 staff from elsewhere in the public service with no background in equality legislation and its implementation.
The cutback in the authority's budget will inevitably mean staff cuts. It presently employs 53 people. With a cut of 43 per cent in its budget the most optimistic scenario would involve a cut in about a third of the staff. This means that there would be 30 staff in Roscrea, and a handful in Dublin. None of the Roscrea staff would have significant expertise in equality legislation.
This will inevitably call into question the ability of the Equality Authority to fulfil its mandate under the legislation that set it up and various EU directives, which is to promote equality of opportunity and seek to eliminate discrimination, to provide information to the general public and to make recommendations for change in the legislation.
The amount of money saved will be minuscule in the overall budget of the Department of Justice, about €2.5 million out of €459.5 million.
Indeed, given that staff who leave will have to be redeployed elsewhere in the public service, it will probably be less in the grand scheme of things.
So why is the Equality Authority being singled out? One of the ways in which the authority has been seeking to fulfil its mandate has been by supporting individuals who have brought cases to the Equality Tribunal and where necessary to the courts, alleging discrimination either in employment or in the provision of goods and services under one of the nine grounds spelled out in the legislation. As well as resolving the issue for the individual, these cases have had the effect of informing the public of what the legislation means, and clarifying for employers and service-providers what their obligations are.
This would appear to be unexceptionable - until one looks closer at the cases that have been brought. A close examination of the authority's annual reports for the past three years reveals the fact that the majority of cases are taken by individuals who are claiming discrimination by the State and its agencies.
Government departments, State agencies, local authorities and educational institutions made up 54 per cent of the case files under the Equal Status Acts in 2005, 60 per cent in 2006 and 69 per cent in 2007. Under the Employment Equality Acts 42 per cent of the case files concerned State bodies in 2005 and 2006, and 49 per cent in 2007.
Cases that hit the headlines, out of a total of 1,134 case files over the past three years involving public agencies, included a settlement by the Department of Social and Family Affairs of a case where it had denied the adult dependant allowance to the same-sex partner of a man suffering a terminal illness; a case against the Department of Education and Science on behalf of students with dyslexia whose Leaving Certificates were annotated to indicate their learning difficulty; a €60,000 award against the Revenue Commissioners for discrimination on age grounds in a promotion which required a review of its procedures; and a report that four top gardaí had written to the authority alleging discrimination by the commissioner on age grounds - involving conflict with the authority's parent department.
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that this activity on the part of the Equality Authority has been an irritant to civil servants, and the opportunity afforded by the Budget to cut it short proved too hard to resist.
It is equally hard to avoid the conclusion that the Human Rights Commission, another body with a mandate to take complaints and carry out inquiries on behalf of those whose human rights have been infringed, has suffered a cut of almost a quarter in its budget precisely to ensure it cannot do so. If the Equality Authority cannot fulfil its mandate as a result of the combined financial cutbacks and continued decentralisation, other bodies which scrutinise the workings of agencies of the State will have reason to be worried. The Garda Ombudsman Commission, for instance, is a relatively new body established in the context of successive reports from the Morris tribunal into Garda wrongdoing. Its budget was cut by 5 per cent, just above the departmental average.
However, another opportunity to limit its effectiveness will come when its current chairman, Mr Justice Kevin Haugh, departs next February and will have to be replaced. It will be interesting to see whether the new chairman will exhibit the independence and determined opposition to wrongdoing in the Garda Síochána shown by the judge.
Even the first of these institutions set up as a watchdog on the public service, the Office of the Ombudsman currently headed by Emily O'Reilly, may feel a chill wind blowing in this new climate.
• Carol Coulter is Legal Affairs Editor