The Equality Tribunal has awarded maximum compensation of €6,384 under the Equal Status Acts to a traveller family, for the refusal of funeral directors to repose their 14-year-old son who died in 2011, following an extended illness.
The Joyce family were supported by the Equality Authority and Pavee Point Traveller’s Centre in taking their case, claiming discrimination on the grounds of membership of the Traveller Community. The family sought to engage funeral directors known to them to preside over the funeral of their son, however they were anxious to hold the wake in Ashbourne, near the intended cemetery, and closer to their son’s former school and friends. As the funeral directors of choice did not have premises in Ashbourne to hold the wake, a representative contacted a local Ashbourne funeral director, Michael Ryan Funeral Directors, seeking to use their premises.
The Tribunal found the complainant, the boy's mother, to be a credible witness, and held that the Ashbourne funeral directors had initially agreed to allow the premises be used by the Joyce family, but had subsequently revoked that permission on the basis of their membership of the Travelling community. Emily Logan, Chief Commissioner of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Designate explained that the “great loss” that the family had suffered from their bereavement “was compounded by the discrimination that they experienced at the time of his burial”.
Click here to read a press release by the Equality Authority.
Click here to see the published decision of the Equality Tribunal.