AN EMPLOYEE of University College Dublin has been awarded €5,000 by the Equality Tribunal for being discriminated against on the basis of his age.
Ian Cornelius, head of the school of information and library studies, applied for the post of professor in the school in 2008 when he was 63.
In October that year he met the college principal of human sciences and told her he would be applying for the professorship.
“She advised him not to, that UCD would not appoint someone so close to retirement and that it was intended to be a new blood post and not intended for internal candidates,” equality officer Hugh Lonsdale said in his report.
“The complainant submits that he was extremely upset after the initial meeting and initially considered not applying, but on 10th October, 2008, he took his application to HR.”
He told someone at HR about his conversation with the college principal and he then e-mailed his concerns to HR and these were forwarded to the employee relations manager. He got no response.
On November 25th, 2008, the college principal told Mr Cornelius he had not been shortlisted for the post but that external assessors had wanted him shortlisted.
Responding, UCD denied allegations of ageism and told the tribunal the college principal had not considered Mr Cornelius to be “competitive for the chair” and “he was not excluded because of his age”, but because he had not met other essential criteria.
In his commentary on the case, Mr Lonsdale said he did not understand why the principal of human sciences would tell Mr Cornelius he was too close to retirement age to be considered for the post, if in fact the reason he had not been shortlisted had been that he had not met other essential criteria.
The knowledge about Mr Cornelius used to assess whether he met criteria for the post was personal knowledge about him.
“This is not in itself discriminatory but when taken together with the college principal’s comments to the complainant . . . to conclude that the shortlisting process was tainted by these comments and that this amounts to discrimination on the grounds of age.”
Mr Lonsdale ordered UCD to pay Mr Cornelius €5,000 “in compensation for the discriminatory treatment suffered”.
