The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) has found the refusal to open a bank account on the grounds of Syrian nationality to be discriminatory.
The claimant was a Syrian national who was granted refugee status in July 2017 as part of the Refugee Protection Programme. He is a dentist, who is currently requalifying to practice in Ireland. The claimant sought to open a bank account with AIB, however states that he was told that “we don’t open bank accounts for Syrians at the moment”. Current AIB policy restricts opening of bank accounts for Syrian residents due to their inclusion on the UN Sanctions List. This should not have applied, however, to the claimant who had been granted refugee status.
The claimant wrote to the bank and received an apology from the Regional Manager, who offered to open a bank account along with compensation of €250. The claimant believed this to have been “an empty exercise in PR” and to have aggravated the discrimination. With representation from the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, the claimant complained to the WRC that AIB had discriminated against him on the grounds of race under the Equal Status Acts.
The WRC agreed with the complaint that where there is an explicit policy to refuse a service based on nationality, there is an extensive duty on the service provider to ensure that such policies are precisely and carefully applied so as to avoid what occurred in this case. The WRC accepted that the bank had policies on equality and opening a bank account, but these did not seem to be familiar to front line workers.
The WRC ordered the bank to pay compensation of €4,000 to the complaint. It also instructed the bank to engage directly with the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission to minimise the possibility of re-occurrence of the incident and asked that both the bank and the Commission report back on progress within 6 months.
Click here for the decision of the WRC.