Ireland's Multiple Ground Anti-Discrimination Framework — Extending the Limitations?

Abstract

Against the backdrop of the more recent similar expansion of the anti-discrimination framework at EU level, this article reviews the operation of the last five years of Ireland's expanded anti-discrimination framework which brought an extension of the discriminatory grounds from two to a total of nine. In particular, it raises questions as to the claimed effectiveness of the ED framework from the perspective of those, particularly women, who identify across multiple grounds. This is evidenced through a review of some of the conceptual and practical problems that inhere in an anti-discrimination structure that is predicated upon a strict categorical-comparator approach to identity and disadvantage. In particular, the way in which women with compound identities experience intersectional discrimination remains unaddressed by dominant conceptions of single category definitions of direct and indirect discrimination. Yet the acknowledged reality of women as victims of multiple discrimination appears to be outwith the structures of the newly expanded legislation. Thus, far from being an effective basis for addressing multiple discrimination, the Irish experience demonstrates again, that at the level of individual enforcement, the well-worn criticisms of the anti-discrimination framework remain firmly embedded in the expanded regulations.