Employment Equality Act, 1998

Savings and exceptions related to the family, age or disability.

34.—(1) In relation to the discriminatory grounds specified in paragraphs (a) to (h) of section 28 (1), nothing in this Part or Part II shall make it unlawful for an employer to provide—

(a) a benefit to an employee in respect of events related to members of the employee's family or any description of those members,

(b) a benefit to or in respect of a person as a member of an employee's family,

(c) a benefit to an employee on or by reference to an event occasioning a change in the marital status of the employee, or

(d) to an employee who has family status a benefit intended directly to provide or assist in the provision, during working hours, of care for a person for whom the employee has responsibility as mentioned in paragraphs (a) and (b) of the definition of “family status” in section 2 (1).

(2) In subsection (1) “employer” includes an employment agency, a person offering a course of vocational training as mentioned in section 12 (1) and a regulatory body; and accordingly references to an employee include—

(a) a person seeking or using any service provided by the employment agency,

(b) a person participating in any such course or facility as is referred to in paragraphs (a) to (c) of section 12 (1), and

(c) a person who is a member of the regulatory body.

(3) Nothing in this Part or Part II shall make unlawful discrimination on the age ground or the disability ground in circumstances where it is shown that there is clear actuarial or other evidence that significantly increased costs would result if the discrimination were not permitted in those circumstances.

(4) Without prejudice to subsection (3), it shall not constitute discrimination on the age ground to fix different ages for the retirement (whether voluntarily or compulsorily) of employees or any class or description of employees.

(5) Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (3), it shall not constitute discrimination on the age ground to set, in relation to any job, a maximum age for recruitment which takes account of—

(a) any cost or period of time involved in training a recruit to a standard at which the recruit will be effective in that job, and

(b) the need for there to be a reasonable period of time prior to retirement age during which the recruit will be effective in that job.

(6) Where immediately before the relevant day, arrangements are in force in any employment for age-related remuneration, it shall be a sufficient compliance with this Part and Part II if those arrangements are brought to an end within the period of 3 years beginning on the relevant day.

(7) It shall not constitute discrimination on the age ground for an employer to provide for different persons—

(a) different rates of remuneration, or

(b) different terms and conditions of employment,

if the difference is based on their relative seniority (or length of service) in a particular post or employment.

(8) In this section “the relevant day” means the day appointed for the coming into operation of section 29 .