Conference on disability law: Irish anti-discrimination law relating to the employment of people with disabilities will probably have to be changed when the EU Employment Equality Directive comes into force, the conference on disability law was told.
Ms Barbara Nolan, head of the anti-discrimination unit of the European Commission, said the directive placed an obligation on employers to take appropriate measures to accommodate people with disabilities by adapting their premises, work schedules and job descriptions. This was intended to ensure there was a level playing field in the employment sphere.
The "reasonable accommodation" requirement included the provision that this did not place a "disproportionate burden" on the employer.
Irish legislation, the Equal Employment Act, refers to "nominal cost" rather than "disproportionate burden". Employers did not have to accommodate people with disabilities if the cost was more than nominal.
This would probably have to be changed to ensure compatibility with the directive, she said.
The directive also set out the legal standing of interest groups to bring cases on behalf or in support of individuals, she said. Irish legislation would also have to be amended to take account of this.
The directive also spells out that sanctions must be effective, proportionate with the infringement of rights, and dissuasive.
Only a few cases involving disability rights have reached the committees overseeing the implementation of UN human rights and other treaties, Mr Stefano Sensi of the Office of the Commission on Human Rights told the conference. However, the success of the few that were taken showed the potential of the individual complaints mechanism.
In some cases, the Human Rights Committee recognised that the failure on the part of the State to attend to the deteriorating mental health of complainants, and to take steps to alleviate psychiatric illness, constituted a violation of the complainants' rights.
In another case, the failure by prison authorities to take a detainee's disability into account, and make proper arrangements for him in prison, was recognised as a violation of his rights.
Mr Sensi said there was now a broad consensus on the need for a new convention dealing specifically with the rights of people with disabilities. However, there was no consensus so far on the type of convention to be adopted. It would be some years before the text of a convention was agreed, and even longer before it becomes binding international law, he said. In the meantime, people with disabilities should make full use of existing laws.