THE Minister for Equality and Law Reform is to make an extra Pounds 277,000 available to the Equality Employment Agency to help it fulfil the new role envisaged for it under the Employment Equality Bill, Padraig Yeates reports. This will bring total Government funding for the new Equality Authority to Pounds 750,000 in 1996.
Mr Taylor was speaking at the launch of the EEA annual report in Government Buildings yesterday. He praised the effectiveness of the agency in tackling gender discrimination at all levels.
Under the Bill, the agency will be transformed into the Equality Authority and be given new powers and responsibilities to tackle discrimination against the disabled, against travellers, or on the basis of a person's race, religion, sexual orientation or age. He predicted the new measures would have their widest impact on employment patterns in helping people with disabilities and those who find it difficult to obtain jobs because of their age.
The chairwoman of the EEA, Ms Carmel Foley, welcomed the legislation and said that staff was "committed to continuing to deliver the level of service the public rightly demands from us".
The chairwoman of the agency, Ms Kate Hayes, said. "No thing in the way of prejudice or outdated practices should be put in the way of our people and this country reaching their full potential. That, in a nutshell, is the business case for equal opportunities."