by Anne Lyne May-28-2014 in Employment Law
The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Bill 2014 (“IHREC”) has recently been published. The main purpose of the Bill is to merge the Human Rights Commission and Equality Authority.
This Bill is of particular interest from an employment perspective as it contains a proposed new “positive duty” obligation on the public sector.
The introduction of this positive duty provision reflects the State’s commitment to fulfilling the requirement for equivalence of protection of rights with Northern Ireland which has established in the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement and the Government’s Programme for National Recovery 2011 to 2016.
The duty set out in the Bill requires public bodies to “have regard to” the need to eliminate discrimination, promote equality of opportunity and protect the human rights of its employees and service users.
Section 42 provides as follows:
“a public body shall, having regard to the functions and purpose of the body and to its size and the resources available to it—
(a) set out in a manner that is accessible to the public in its strategic plan … an assessment of the human rights and equality issues it believes to be relevant to the functions and purpose of the body and the policies, plans and actions in place or proposed to be put in place to address these issues; and
(b) report in a manner that is accessible to the public on developments and achievements in that regard in its annual report (howsoever described)”.
The focus of this section is primarily on processes and procedures, rather than on substantive progressive equality and human rights outcomes.
The Bill provides that the IHREC may issue guidelines or codes of practice to a public body regarding this duty and may carry out a review of the operation of the duty by public bodies. The definition of public body includes, government bodies, local authorities, the HSE, Universities and Institutes of Technology and certain companies where the Government is a stakeholder. The definition does not include the Defence Forces or schools.
The Bill currently does not propose any sanctions for a breach of the legislation or give the IHREC any direct power to “name and shame”.
Changes have been suggested at the Dail Committee stage on 30 April 2014 for the IHREC to have the power to issue a notice to a public body to comply with the duty. It will be interesting to see whether this change will feature at the next stage of the process.
Although on the face of it this section will require a paradigm shift in how the public sector operates, in reality given the procedural rather than substantive nature of the duty, it is unlikely to have any real bite.
If you have any queries on this article please contact Anne Lyne of Hayes Solicitors on alyne@hayes-solicitors.ie
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About the Author
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Anne Lyne
Anne is a partner in the Employment team at Hayes solicitors. She has considerable experience advising and representing employers and employees on all aspects of the employment relationship from pre-employment matters to termination.