Council guilty of racial discrimination

Single Incident Alert DateOctober 16, 2012 Country: Ireland Address: Kerry County Council General Type: Discrimination, Institutional discrimination Racism and discrimination phenomena: Anti-migrant/xenophobia, Xenophobia
Groups affected / Interested in: Migrants, Ethnic minorities Key socio-economic/institutional areas: Employment - labour market Hate speech/Racist Discourse Medium: Internet, Newspaper
Victims Data
Victims Nationality/Ethnic Origin Polish
Victims Gender Male
Victims Age N/A
Victims Number 1
Fatalities - deaths N/A
Perpetrators Data
Perpetrators Nationality/Ethnic Origin Irish
Perpetrator Gender N/A
Perpetrator Age N/A
Perpetrators Number N/A
Extremist/Organised Group Violence No

Kerry County Council has been found guilty of racial discrimination during a recruitment process for lifeguards in 2008. Despite the fact that a Polish national was better qualified he did not get the position. This was said to be due to inconsistencies in the application of the recruitment process favouring Irish over Polish applicants. There appears to be evidence that Kerry County Council failed to recognise the respective candidate's first aid qualifications and to lower his original score in the foregoing aptitude test leading him to fail. The Equality ordered the Council to pay €7,500 compensation to the complainant.

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