WRC finds complaint against Clare County Council not well founded

The Workplace Relations Commission found Mary O'Donoghue’s Equal Status complaint against Clare County Council was not well founded in a decision dated 1 May 2025. The complaint concerned an application for a portable toilet and alleged discrimination on the Traveller community, disability and race grounds, including a failure to provide reasonable accommodation. O'Donoghue’s case included that the Council had failed to arrange sanitary facilities while she lived at unauthorised sites. The Council argued that the application was handled by a Community Welfare Officer for the Department of Social Protection and that the Council was not the service provider for it. The WRC accepted the complaint was within time, but found the Department, through its Community Welfare Officer, was the service provider and decision maker for the portable toilet application. The complaint against the Council was therefore not well founded. No award was recorded.