Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Paul Carolan

Saongroup Ltd. t/a Irish Jobs.ie

Complainant

Respondent

Anonymised Parties

Representatives

Paul Carolan

Peter McInnes McInnes Dunne Solicitors

Act

Complaint/Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 77 of the Employment Equality Act, 1998

CA-00018930-001

03/05/2018

In his complaint form, the claimant submitted as follows :

My complaint relates to an already ongoing complaint (which deals with a

claim of age discrimination against the employment agency AB. The original complaint

evolved around a recruitment campaign orchestrated by the above mentioned AB, however, I

found their advertisement on a third party website belonging to the instant respondent and having done so I applied for theposition through that website. The advertisement which appeared on the respondent’s website was originally posted by AB and contained within its message a line explaining “We are looking for young ambitious candidates in a couple of different locations”. It remains my opinion that the above message is discriminatory and regardless of experience or qualifications I would have been pre-categorised. I have already challenged AB on this matter but I firmly believe that although the respondent are a third party to the fact, they too have discriminated against me by republishing the advertisement. The respondent company are a recruitment agency in their own right and by their own admission claim to be Irelands No1 and largest job website. In their position it should be assumed that they are familiar with the workplace relations act and the consequences for not adhering to it. Where they did not write the offending article, they did republish it for the purpose of financial gain and subsequently I used their platform.

At the hearing , the claimant asserted that the respondent was equally culpable with the recruitment agency as they had published the reference to young candidates – he felt victimised .He contended that publishing discriminatory material is illegal.He argued that the failure by the respondent to detect this discriminatory terminology was a failure of the respondent’s procedures.

The respondent denied the complaint and contended that the complaint was misconceived .It was submitted that Section 8 prohibits discrimination by employers and providers of agency work and that the respondent is neither.It was submitted that the respondent is the medium through which companies post job adverts and plays no other role in the recruitment process. Copies of the   contracts between the respondent and its customers were submitted and it was asserted that customers are required to comply with equality legislation .It was submitted that the respondent has no role in the creation of advertisement contents .The respondent’s customer service team monitor site content and the respondent has a facility to allow job seekers report any concerns about job advertisements.

I have reviewed the evidence presented at the hearing and noted the respective position of the parties. As the respondent is neither an employer nor a provider of agency work , I find the complaint is misconceived and is accordingly dismissed.