IRELAND'S EQUAL STATUS ACTS UNDER THE SPOTLIGHT
Justice Minister questioned on Amendment to Section 6: 'Different treatment' of Travellers.
A new amendment to Ireland’s Equal Status Acts, published in October 2020, raises more questions about Ireland’s treatment of Travellers under the law, treatment that has been condemned as being in breach of international law. Dr Anna Hoare has written to Justice Minister Helen McEntee asking for clarification of a new amendment to Section 6, which follows the UN CERD Committee’s calls for fundamental reform of the equality framework.
Section 6 allows ‘different treatment’ of Travellers by housing authorities, who are exempt from the provisions of the Act. This section, together with the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009 Section 22 (5), allows local quota systems and ‘designated’ houses for Travellers. These laws were the subject of a Shadow Report to the UN CERD Committee by Dr Hoare in 2019, who argued they were incompatible with Ireland’s international obligations. The Shadow Report (link below) gave examples of Travellers forced by courts into ‘emergency sites’, while council houses lay empty because they were not ‘designated Traveller houses’. It condemned the use of ‘deeply entrenched’ local systems of segregation and rationing which encourage targeting and intimidation of Travellers, often with the connivance of local politicians, and which can lead to vandalism and even destruction of houses that have been allocated to Traveller families.
The UN Committee's concluding comments on Ireland listed the ‘shortcomings of the Equal Status Acts’ and cited ‘the absence of all prohibited grounds of racial discrimination in conformity with Article 1 of the Convention’. In other words, Ireland’s laws fail to meet the most fundamental requirement of equality legislation.
The amendment to Section 6 - which continues to include Travellers and leaves the original, flawed provision for ‘different treatment’ unchanged - adds a new, qualifying paragraph:
“Nothing in paragraph (a) shall derogate from any of the obligations of the State under the treaties governing the European Communities within the meaning of the European Communities Acts 1972 to 2003 or any Act adopted by an institution of those Communities.”
Dr Hoare has written to Minister McEntee asking whether the treaties referred to include the Lisbon Treaty, which includes the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Article 21 prohibits discrimination "on any ground such as sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation".
D Hoare asks the Justice Minister: ‘Do you consider that the practices permitted by the Equal Status Act and Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009, and outlined in the Shadow Report, are consistent with Ireland’s obligations under the treaties governing the European Community, in particular, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union as set out in the Lisbon Treaty?’
The letter continues: ‘As long as Travellers are still referred to in the Equal Status Act as a group to whom "different treatment" may be afforded, do you consider that the amendment F22 (b) will eliminate the use of arbitrary housing quota systems and ‘designated’ houses for Travellers?’
Traveller Solidarity Alliance will publish the Minister’s responses to these and other questions as soon as they are available.