Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Henry  Greene

Dublin City Council

Act

Complaint Reference No.

Date of Receipt

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

CA-00057365-001

10/07/2023

This is a complaint under the Equal Status Act. The complainant is a retired local authority worker who resides in Co Meath.

He applied to Dublin City Council (DCC) for a transfer to accommodation in that authority’s area, but this has been declined on the basis that he was not resident within its functional area. (He had worked for Dublin City Council for thirty-four years).

He submitted correspondence which he sent to DCC on January 1st, 2022, setting out his case for wishing to transfer. He outlined his social and medical situation and how living within the Dublin city area would significantly improve his quality of life.

He wrote again on September 12th, 2022 but did not receive a reply to either letter.

He wrote again on January 30th, 2023, this time to the Chief Executive of DCC and this did elicit a response from a council official on February 1st, 2022, as follows.

Dear Mr. Greene

! refer to your letters of 12th September 2022 & 30th January 2023 in relation to a

possible transfer from a Meath County Council property to a Dublin City Council

Property.

Unfortunately, you are not eligible to be added to the DCC transfer list as you are not a

tenant of DCC. However, you may apply for an inter-transfer with another DCC tenant.

A tenant of the City Council or of an Approved Voluntary Housing Association may, with

the consent of the Housing Association Manager, exchange the tenancy of his/her

existing dwelling for the tenancy of another Local Authority tenant.

For more information regarding inter-transfers please see the enclosed form

The complainant says that he regards this as age discrimination.

Specifically, he points out that there are particular obstacles in the way of an older person being able to find someone of the same generation who will undertake an exchange, and that this provision makes it more difficult for an older person to comply with the regulation, rendering it discriminatory.

The respondent did not attend the hearing.

Under this legislation a person must establish that they have been the subject of less favourable treatment on one of the protected grounds than another person who does not fall within them.

The complainant is a native of Dublin and is retired having worked for Dublin City Council for thirty-four years. He says all his remaining family and friends live in the city, and, on account of various medical conditions, he attends hospital appointments in Dublin.

He is understandably annoyed that it took a letter to the Chief Executive of the City Council to elicit a response, and when it came it was hardly a model of sensitivity or understanding, even if it was obliged to convey the bad news for the complainant that it contained.

While sympathetic to his plight, the legal test is, as referred to above, whether this represents less favourable treatment, specifically on the grounds of his age.

While he did not express in it in such terms, it is well established over many years in employment equality law that a requirement to comply with a specific term which would have a tendency to be more difficult for a person with a protected characteristic to meet than another, and which is not an objective requirement for the position may give rise to a claim of discrimination. (Height requirements for women and some aspects of the jurisprudence on age limits provide examples.)

The complainant offered the argument that it was more difficult for an older person to arrange a transfer than a younger person but did not actually offer any evidence in that regard.

Indeed, purely as a general proposition it is not particularly persuasive.  Younger families, for example with school commitments etc may be just as likely to wish to remain where they are as an elderly person.

In any event, as noted the complainant (who was not represented) did not support this contention with any detail.

It is unfortunate that the burden of making the necessary connection to arrange the transfer falls entirely on an applicant in these circumstances and that there is no (as far as the complainant is aware) database of parties who may be looking for a transfer.

However, neither that, nor the regrettable discourtesy and lack of empathy displayed to its former employee by Dublin City Council (including its uncharacteristic failure to attend a WRC hearing) is sufficient to ground a case of discrimination under the Act.

The complaint is not well founded.

For the reasons set out above complaint CA-00057365-001 is not well founded.

Equal Status Act, age grounds.