The Department of Health and Children has been ordered to pay €40,000 to a civil servant who was denied promotion because of his age. It was also criticised for failing to keep records of interviews and for furnishing incorrect information to an equality officer.
The officer, Ms Anne-Marie Lynch, found that Mr John Gillen, an assistant principal in the Department, who is in his 50s, was discriminated against on age grounds in two competitions for promotion. The Department said last night that it would appeal the decision to the Labour Court.
Mr Gillen claimed that the Department had a policy of not promoting people aged over 50.
When Ms Lynch attempted to investigate this claim by seeking statistics on the ages of people promoted to the position of principal officer since 1999, she was supplied with incorrect information by the Department.
In her report on the case, published on the website of the Equality Tribunal, she says that she "unwittingly copied" this information to Mr Gillen for his observations. "It was only when I received his response that I discovered he had obtained further information through the Freedom of Information Act, 1997, that indicated the \ information was incorrect. The Department had informed Mr Gillen of the errors, but had not afforded her the same "courtesy".
That was not the only incorrect information supplied by the Department to Ms Lynch during her investigation of Mr Gillen's claim. She found that the average age of candidates in the two competitions she examined, as calculated by the Department, were also incorrect. In one case, the Department described the average age of the applicants as 39 and of the six successful candidates as 40, when in fact the average age of the applicants had been 43.6.
In the other case, the Department said that the average age of the applicants was 34.5, while the successful candidate was 35. "In fact, the average age of the applicants was 44.75 years." It was "regrettable", Ms Lynch said, that the Department's calculations were not reliable. It was a "matter of particular concern" that no written records existed in relation to interviews relevant to Mr Gillen's claim.
The Labour Court and equality officers had criticised the practice of destroying interview notes many times in the past, she said. "In this instance, I must consider that the absence of interview notes, as well as the lack of proper assessment criteria, strongly supports an allegation of discriminatory practices."
Ms Lynch concluded that the mechanisms of promotion used by the Department, in the two competitions cited by Mr Gillen, were "inadequate and inappropriate". She found that Mr Gillen was suitable for promotion, contrary to the assertions of the Department. "I also note that the promotion statistics support the view that officers over 50 years of age have not been promoted by the respondent Department."
As well as awarding Mr Gillen €40,000 in compensation, she ordered the Department to introduce "objective and transparent" mechanisms allowing all candidates to be considered on their merits.
