The Equality Tribunal found that a primary school discriminated against Mrs. K and her son on the Traveller community ground by taking more than four months to decide their enrolment application. It awarded them €3,500 and ordered the school to put a system in place to process applications on time. Equality Officer Enda Murphy dated the decision 18 January 2011.
The school said it had an open enrolment policy and applied the same requirements to all pupils. The officer found the school did not meet its 21-day response obligation and gave no plausible reason for the delay, which he attributed to the boy’s Traveller identity. The later refusal to admit him before he met the school’s standard enrolment requirements was not discriminatory. The family status, race, harassment and victimisation complaints were also not well founded.