Ex-soldier gets €20,000 in bias case against Bus Éireann

Bus Éireann has been ordered to pay a former soldier €20,000 after it dismissed him for having defective hearing.

The man, referred to as Mr C, alleged that he was discriminated against on the grounds of disability.

The man had been employed as a part-time school-bus driver on a casual basis and was effectively employed full-time when he was also offered summer seasonal driving.

He told the Equality Tribunal that when he was tested by Bus Éireann's chief medical officer in 1993 it was found that he had "slight high tone hearing loss", possibly from his time in the Army.

However, it was not regarded as an obstacle to his employment.

He passed another medical "with flying colours" in 2002, but was told in 2004 that he was no longer fit to drive for the company because of his hearing.

A letter from Mr C's own consultant concluded that the extent of his hearing loss would not affect his driving.

Bus Éireann acknowledged that it had found Mr C fit to drive a bus in May 2002, but new standards were brought in for seasonal driving in September 2003 and subsequently extended to school- bus driving in June 2004.

Equality officer Anne-Marie Lynch held that subjecting Mr C to repeated hearing tests was not justified because Bus Éireann did not carry out hearing assessments on all its drivers.

In a situation where it could not be sure of the state of hearing of all of its drivers, Bus Éireann was not justified in applying hearing standards it did not apply to all its drivers to Mr C, she said.