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Northern Ireland
O'Neill v Fairview Motors Ltd [2012]
Published on: 14/09/2012
Issues Covered:
Discrimination
Article Authors The main content of this article was provided by the following authors.
Background Age Discrimination; Retirement; Objective JustificationIn this case the claimant was an employee employed by the respondent as a motor mechanic from November 1989 until the end of July 2008. The claimant argued that his employer did not allow him to avail of the same training opportunities as the other youngeremployees as he was due to retire. The claimant argued that this constituted less favourable treatment and age discrimination. The respondent counter argued that the decision to end the contract of employment was due to 65 being the compulsory age of retirement. The fact that the respondent did not have an established company policy regarding obligatory retirement was a key factor in the finding that the employee had, in fact, been unfairly denied equal access to training opportunities. Furthermore, there was no set custom and practice in the industry to follow. The tribunal did find that age discrimination will not always be unjustified. There must be a „legitimate aim‟ and a set retirement age must be an „appropriate and necessary‟ means of achieving that aim. The respondent put forward health and safety, competence and job rotation issues as legitimate aims, but the tribunal rejected these as there remained no settled policy in the company. The complainant was awarded €30,000.http://bit.ly/TF0b1L

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Disclaimer The information in this article is provided as part of Legal Island's Employment Law Hub. We regret we are not able to respond to requests for specific legal or HR queries and recommend that professional advice is obtained before relying on information supplied anywhere within this article. This article is correct at 14/09/2012
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