INQUIRIES to the Employment Equality Agency rose by 70 per cent last year. The increase was accounted for almost entirely by people seeking information on the new Maternity Protection Act.
According to the annual report of the agency for 1995, there were 1,747 inquiries about maternity leave entitlements, out of a total of 3,600. If inquiries on maternity leave are excluded, the agency dealt with only 1,747 cases in 1995, compared with 2,132 in 1994.
The agency's information officer, Ms Kathleen Connolly, attributes the decline to trade unions and employer organisations becoming more proficient at tackling equality problems in the workplace.
She also points out that a third of inquiries about the 1994 Maternity Protection Act have come from employers, suggesting a significant change in their attitude towards women in the workplace.
The Act provides extra entitlements for men, as well as women, at work, including more unpaid leave. But the most significant change is that women who feel they have a health and safety problem at work during pregnancy can bring it to the attention of the firm's health and safety officer.
If it is agreed that risk exists, it must be removed or the employee granted paid leave. If the safety officer rejects the application, the employee can appeal to the Health and Safety Authority and then to a Rights Commissioner, the Employment Appeals Tribunal and, ultimately, the courts.
The Act is expected to have a particular impact among women performing heavy manual tasks, such as nursing and some areas of manufacturing and services.
The EEA has welcomed the provisions of the new Employment Equality Bill, which also extends protection to groups such as the aged, travellers and the disabled. But the experience with the Maternity Protection Act suggests that there will be an even greater demand for the EEA's services in the coming years.
Apart from maternity leave inquiries, sexual harassment has remained by far the largest cause of complaint to the agency.
There were 267 inquiries during 1995, compared with 307 in 1994. Of these, 150 involved actual complaints of harassment and 13 of the 33 complaints settled by the agency during the year involved sexual harassment.
Altogether, Pounds 90,000 was paid in compensation to complainants in 15 of the 33 cases settled by the agency. The agency does not give any further details of the nature of these cases, to preserve confidentiality.
Another significant area of the agency's work has been in tackling complaints over working conditions. Forty of the 97 complaints received in this category were from employees seeking more flexible hours of work.
The agency is still encountering difficulty in winning cases in which clients complain that they have been refused a job or passed over for promotion because of gender. The agency says that lack of transparency in selection procedures is the biggest obstacle here.
Of 15 equal pay cases taken only three were successful, largely because of a lack of male "comparators" doing sufficiently similar work.
However one problem that does appear to have been resolved is advertising. The agency says employers generally are respecting the prohibition on expressing a preference in advertisements for candidates of a particular sex or marital status.
Taken by sector, most inquiries came from public administration and defence, with 248. This was followed by professional services, with 227, and manufacturing, with 190.
Most inquiries to the agency came from Dublin, with 910. There were 223 from the rest of Leinster, 229 from Munster, 85 from Connacht, 37 from the Ulster counties in the Republic and 19 from abroad.