Country Report: Non-Discrimination: Ireland 2020

Irish society is quite homogeneous. According to the 2016 census,1 of a population of just under 4.8 million, 78.3 % are Roman Catholic, 9.8 % are non-religious (an increase of 73.6 % from 2011), and the remainder are of various other religions. 82.2 % of the population describe themselves as ‘White Irish’ and 0.7 % as Irish Travellers.2 57 850 people identify as ‘Black African’ or ‘Black Irish’, with 9.5 % belonging to ‘Any other White background’. 643 131 people, approximately 13.5 % of the population, recorded having a disability. A total of 6 034 same-sex couples live in Ireland. Non-Irish nationals number 535 475 (11.6 % of the population), with UK citizens and nationals of other EU countries (Polish, Lithuanian, Romanian and Latvian) comprising the top five nationality groups. Ireland’s anti-discrimination laws were expanded significantly in the late 1990s. The Employment Equality Act 19983 and the Equal Status Act 20004 provided for nine discriminatory grounds and established a national equality body, as well as a dedicated forum for hearing anti-discrimination complaints, the Equality Tribunal. From 2008 successive national budgets severely curtailed funding for equality infrastructure. In November 2014, the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC)5 was established as Ireland’s national equality body. The body is equipped with equivalent powers to its predecessor, and its funding position has improved. The Equality Tribunal was subsumed, along with several employment rights bodies, into the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) in 2015.6 The impact of this change (if any) on discrimination complaints cannot yet be evaluated.