Claims of workplace discrimination have reached record levels this year, with a sharp rise in racism complaints, figures published today show.
The Equality Tribunal revealed it has dealt with 321 claims in the first nine months of this year compared to 314 cases during the same period last year.
According to the latest figures, incidents of alleged racism in the workplace are up dramatically from 53 complaints between January and October last year to 93 this year.
The Equality Tribunal recorded a significant fall in claims based on age grounds in accessing goods and services, however, down from 28 to eight. Gender-based complaints fell from 72 to 60, while there was also a dip in disability-based complaints from 56 to 42.
Claims on other grounds were stable, according to the director of the Equality Tribunal, Melanie Pine. She said there had been a significant fall (27 per cent) in claims of discrimination over access to goods and services, from 167 (covering 721 people) last year to 122 (covering 397 people) in the first nine months of this year.
Although there was a drop in claims on the sole ground of membership of the Traveller community, overall 37 per cent of cases referred involved members of the Traveller community who made claims on one or more grounds.
The number of claims against public sector organisations fell by a third but still accounted for 40 per cent of claims.
The Equality Tribunal has issued 45 decisions in relation to claims of discrimination at work, covering 74 individuals, so far this year. It upheld almost half of these claims, awarding more than €270,000 in total.
Some 66 claims, covering 130 individuals, were decided in relation to access to goods and services with one in three (31 per cent) upheld and a total of €38,200 awarded.
There were 63 cases which reached agreement at mediation, and a further 34 cases were closed after mediation. A large number of other claims were withdrawn or otherwise closed.