Sir, - I was enlightened by Carol Coulter's articles on the Equality Authority, Employment Equality Act and Equality Commission of Northern Ireland, (The Irish Times, October 18th).
I refer to the second of these articles and in particular to the penultimate paragraph which reads: "There is also an exclusion in relation to religious, educational and medical institutions run by religious bodies, who are allowed to discriminate to maintain their religious ethos."
If one reads this quickly, one may conclude that this is reasonable.
I add one word only: "discriminate lawfully to maintain their religious ethos".
This is de facto a position in which the State is now formally endorsing that "religious bodies" may discriminate and no matter how perverse or overwhelming a case may be, no action can be instigated against such bodies. How can this sit alongside the remit of the National Committee on Racism and Multiculturalism?
Surely anti-discrimination legislation must encompass the whole of society, its citizens and its institutions. Why should religious bodies - the churches, or is it The Church - be granted absolution?
Let me propose an example. The Church of Ireland advertises for a book-keeper to work in its educational section and selects for interview only Christians, thus deliberately excluding applicants from the Jewish community. In this case there is no unlawful discrimination under "exclusion" within the Employment Equality Act. But, under the remit of the Committee on Racism and Multiculturalism, it may well be argued there is a case of indirect discrimination contrary to equality of treatment and hence equality of opportunity for employment.
If the Church of Ireland goes further and narrows the applicants to only members of the C of I, does it discriminate lawfully against members of the Roman Catholic majority and others who may or may not not be Christians? I use the C of I as an example and I doubt that such a body would in fact exclude any applicant for the book-keeper post under the above circumstances, although it could do so lawfully.
A cynic might conclude that what drives the requirement for equality is not the desire to be scrupulously fair to all citizens when it comes to employment, but the opportunity to give a religious body whose members form a majority (not the Church of Ireland) the right to discriminate lawfully against all other religious minorities and to deny members of these minorities any legal redress.
Incidentally, I believe there is no comparable exclusion clause in Northern Ireland legislation on employment equality rights. By this exclusion the Irish Government is nullifying its obligation under the Belfast Agreement. It may also be in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. - Yours, etc. M. W. Woods,
Terenure, Dublin 6.