Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Mihai Pusi

McNally & Handy, Estate Agents

Representatives

Threshold

Act

Complaint Reference No.

Date of Receipt

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

CA-00025163-001

21/01/2019

The complaint arises from the treatment of an application for a HAP payment.

On June 15th, 2018 the local authority received the completed HAP application from all parties. A week later the tenant received a letter from the local authority advising that the estate agent could not comply with the terms of the scheme.

This arose from a problem about the bank account into which the payment was to be made. The HAP administration would not accept the bank account designated by the landlord for receipt of payment as it was not the account registered with HAP Shared Services (HAPSS).

Threshold made a number of attempts to resolve the matter of behalf of the complainant but without success.

The respondent’s representative told the complainant’s representative in July that the proposed solutions were ‘unacceptable’; and telling the complainant that HAPSS ‘would not pay the rent into the correct bank account as requested so I would not accept it then’.

He went further in October stating that “HAP need to change their processes and by all means forward them this email’.

The complainant states that neither the respondent nor its employees are entitled to dictate the terms on which the state pays housing subsidies and benefits.

The same employee of the respondent later responded to the referral of this complaint to the WRC as follows;

‘Your complaint is not valid as I have not discriminated against you. It is the HAP department that is discriminating against you by refusing to make payments to the correct bank account each month as it states on your lease agreement. With this in mind, your lease will expire on the 31st of January 2019 and we will not be renewing your lease’.

Eventually the respondent completed the HAP application in July 2019, but the actions of the respondent resulted in the complainant being denied €7,800.00 over a period of thirteen months.

In addition, the conduct of the respondent was a source of great distress to the complainant who also has been suffering from a disability.

The respondent does not dispute the above narrative of events.

An explanation was offered for the problem in relation to the landlord’s bank account which was related to his personal financial circumstances and inability to accept the payment into the account registered with HAPSS.

The sole issue for determination in this complaint is whether the Respondent discriminated against the Complainant under the ‘housing assistance ground’ contrary to Sections 3 and 6 of the Equal Status Act 2000 (as amended), by its actions.

In relation to the applicable burden of proof, Section 38A of the Acts applies to all complaints of discrimination under the Equal Status Acts and requires the Complainant to establish, in the first instance, facts from which the discrimination alleged may be inferred. It is only where such a prima facie case has been established that the onus shifts to the Respondent to rebut the inference of discrimination.

There is no issue that this complaint is properly before the WRC and has been brought within the requisite time-limits provided by Section 21 of the Acts, including those for giving notice of a complaint and referring the complaint.

Some flavour of the respondent’s position can be gleaned from the complainant’s submission above.

It will be seen there that the respondent’s employee took the view that because HAP Shared Services (HAPSS) insisted on payment into the landlord’s bank account which was registered on its files, but this was not acceptable to the landlord, that it was HAPSS which was at fault for refusing to make the payment into ‘the correct bank account’.

That employee went further and expressed the view that HAPSS ‘needed to change their processes’ and it was HAPSS which was discriminating against the complainant.

Unfortunately, the author of this correspondence did not attend the hearing, so it was not possible to ascertain whether this breath-taking lack of insight into the functioning of public administration can be attributed to ignorance of, or indifference to the requirements of the law and the complainant’s rights, or indeed some other cause.

Indeed, the respondent’s employee was prepared to take this as far as to evict the complainant.

This places the breach of the Act at the more extreme end of the spectrum of gravity.

In fairness to the respondent representatives who did attend they seemed embarrassed at the correspondence, as indeed any person with a shred of insight would be.

A very real obligation falls on the respondent to ensure that its employees are more aware of their legal responsibilities. The consequences of failure to do so could include the eviction of a person from their home and could hardly be more serious.

I address this by means of an order in my decision made under Section 27(1) (b) of the Act.

I uphold complaint CA-00025163-001 and award redress in the amount of €10,000.00 to the complainant.

On the basis of the power conferred by Section 27 (1) (b) I also order that the respondent undertake appropriate training of all relevant employees in the requirements of the legislation as it affects applicants for HAP.

Equal Status, HAP payment, discrimination.