Complainant

Respondent

Anonymised Parties

Applicant D

A Property Letting Company

Act

Complaint/Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Section 21 Equal Status Act, 2000

CA-00007460-001

05/10/2016

This is a complaint under the Equal Status Act, 2000 (hereafter the 2000 Act) arising from the application by the complainant for accommodation.

(There are three related cases ADJs 5546, 5547 and 5989 on behalf of other members of the same family and arising from the same set of facts. Separate decisions have been issued in those cases.

The family had identifies a suitable premises for renting and sent in references to the letting agent.

It subsequently emerged that the landlord of the property would not accept a tenancy for one member of the family who was in receipt of social welfare benefit and the tenancy fell through.

The complainant outlined the facts as set out above and alleged a breach of the 2000 Act in respect of one of the applicants who was on social welfare payments.

In respect of the preliminary point raised by the respondent below the complainant says that a delay in sending the two months notice was attributable to a fear on the part of the complainant that she would be victimised if she did so.

The complainant says that she had been threated with retaliation by the letting agent if a complaint followed the incident on May 24^th.

The respondent raised a preliminary point in relation to time limits.

The incident complained of took place on May 25^th 2016.

Section 21 (2) of the 2000 Act requires a complainant to notify a respondent in writing within two months of the incident; in this case by July 23^rd of its intention to pursue a complaint.

She failed to do so.

The referral to the WRC took place on August 19^th 2016 but the application to extend the two months’ deadline was not made until November 10^th 2016.

The application to extend the deadline would have to be made within the two months’ period and this did not happen.

The requirement to send the notice is a strict one, being explicitly stated in the legislation and therefore the complaint is not within jurisdiction.

Section 22(2) of the Equal Status Act 2000 states;

Before seeking redress under this section the complainant

(a)    shall, within two months after the conduct is alleged to have occurred, or where more than one incident of prohibited conduct is alleged to have occurred within two moths after the last such occurrence, notify the respondent in writing of

(i) the nature of the allegation

(ii) the complainant’s intention, if not satisfied with the respondent’s response to the allegation to seek redress by referring the case to the Director.

This language is quite explicit and mandatory. The requirement is that a complainant ‘shall’ take the notification step provided for in section 22(2) of the 2000 Act.

Section 21(3) does allow the Director to extend the two month period to four months if ‘exceptional circumstances prevented the complainant from notifying the respondent’ within the two month period.

However, the complainant did not seek the extension until November 10th, 2016,almost six months after the incident complained of. Whether the explanation provided by the complainant meets the definition of exceptional circumstances (which is unlikely) it is in any event irrelevant.

By that point, some five and a half months later the four months option available to the Director had been well exceeded and she could not have done so, whatever the exceptional circumstances.

Accordingly the complaint is not within jurisdiction and fails.

For the reasons set out above complaint CA-00007460-001 is not within jurisdiction and is not upheld.

Equal Status Act, discrimination against social welfare recipient, two month notification requirements.