The owner of a hotel in Ennis, Co Clare, must pay the legal costs, estimated at Eur 30,000, incurred by four Travellers who took proceedings after they were told to leave the hotel bar, the High Court decided yesterday.
The Travellers are also to receive a total of Eur 5,080 in compensation.
Ms Bridget and Ms Margaret Joyce, Ms Margaret Mongon and Mr Patrick McDonagh, all with addresses at Clancy Park, Ennis, went to the Temple Gate Hotel in Ennis on January 8th, 2001, and ordered tea.
While they were being attended to, an assistant manager of the hotel, Mr Brian Crowe, asked them to leave.
The four left under protest, believing the only reason they were asked to leave was that they were Travellers.
They complained to Mr John Madden, the hotel licensee, and also referred the matter to the Director of Equality Investigations (DEI). An equality officer held there had been discrimination.
Mr Madden was ordered to pay each traveller Eur 1,270 compensation for the "embarrassment, stress and loss of amenity" suffered.
Mr Madden appealed to the Circuit Court under the Equal Status Act, 2000, against the equality officer's findings.
The appeal was due to be heard at a Circuit Court sitting on June 26th, 2002, but solicitors for the Travellers were told the day before that Mr Madden intended to withdraw his appeal.
On June 26th, the Circuit Court judge was told the appeal was being withdrawn. Counsel for the four Travellers applied for legal costs, but the Circuit Court judge held that he could not grant costs and that he was fettered by the provisions of the 2000 Act as the lower tribunal, the office of the Director of Equality Investigations, had no the power to grant costs.
The Travellers appealed that decision on costs to the High Court, and their appeal was upheld yesterday by Mr Justice Kearns.
He ruled that the Travellers were entitled to their Circuit Court costs, plus the costs of the High Court. He put a stay on his findings in the event of an appeal to the Supreme Court.
In his judgment, Mr Justice Kearns said Mr Dermot Kelly SC, for the Travellers, had submitted that it would be incongruous and illogical that a complainant who won an award could be deprived of that award by the bringing of an appeal by a defendant who could at the last moment drop the appeal and expose the complainant to legal costs for which the complainant could not be indemnified.
Mr Justice Kearns held that the 2000 Act contained provisions which could be taken as meaning that the legislation acknowledged the general power of the Circuit Court to make an order for costs in favour of a person coming before it.
If costs could not be awarded it would mean that a successful complainant could have their award reduced or altogether wiped out by legal expense which they might incur in preparing for an appeal in the Circuit Court which might, at the last moment, as had happened in this case, be withdrawn by the other side.
The legislation could, as a result, become an instrument of discrimination.