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A claim of discrimination against a Catholic bishop by a Traveller family over their alleged treatment at a Holy Communion mass five years ago has been dismissed by the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC).
The Traveller family claimed Traveller women were excluded from the mass based on a dress code, even though other women who were wearing elements of clothing that were deemed inadmissible were not asked to leave the church.
The Sherlocks said they were barred due to the length of their dresses and skirts and their necklines.
The family had argued that the Catholic Church was the provider of a service as under the legislation a mass was a “service or facility of any nature which is available to the public generally or a section of the public”.
The WRC ruled that it had no legal authority to adjudicate on 10 individual complaints by members of the Sherlock family that they had been discriminated against by the then bishop of Galway Martin Drennan when they attempted to attend the mass on May 23rd, 2015.
The WRC said religious services or sacraments were not services and did not come within the ambit of the legislation as otherwise it would be unlawful for churches to refuse the sacrament of matrimony to persons who were divorced or of the same sex, or similarly to only ordain men as priests. Read more
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