For the second year running, Ulster Bank Meet Your Neighbours Networking Event in association with the IDA. The most recent event took place on Thursday 16th July at the stunning rooftop bar of Odessa Club and Restaurant on a traditionally wet Irish summer’s evening.

The theme for the night was “Summertime Soiree”, which included informal networking served up with jazz, contemporary music and a delicious BBQ buffet. The event was a huge success, with 80 people from a variety of innovative companies turning out for the event – despite the wet weather! Thankfully Odessa provided sufficient shelter for the lovely open air terrace and we were kept dry for the evening.

International Banking in Ireland

“Meet Your Neighbours” is an IDA initiative that Ulster Bank is delighted to host and be part of.

The IDA continues to do great work, successfully supporting a large number of international companies with their expansion into Ireland. Their work has played an integral role in the recovery of the Irish economy by facilitating the creation of many exciting job opportunities from international companies, creating 9,000 jobs in the first half of 2015.

Ulster Bank’s FDI Team supports international customers by providing a unique and efficient onboarding process which compliments their market-leading online banking service. This is a wonderful example of Ulster Bank’s International Banking Proposition in action (which you can get more information on here: http://intouch.rbsgrp.net/International/default.asp).

“Meet Your Neighbours” provides an opportunity for companies that are new to Ireland, to promote their business and share stories of their success so far. For those attending who are considering Ireland as a potential investment location, it gives a great sense of the close-knit business and tech community in Dublin.

The evening

Companies that attended on the night included: Indeed, Facebook, Slack, Adara, Boxfish and Boomerang, amongst many others.

At the outset, Yvonne Kennedy (Ulster Bank FDI Team) introduced the evening and highlighted the fantastic work conducted by the IDA in attracting these innovative businesses to Ireland.

Barry O’ Dowd (IDA Head of Emerging Business) followed with a few words on behalf of the IDA. After the raffle, he finished by encouraging everyone to network, and enjoy the night!

Barry’s Emerging Business Team were also in attendance, including Aimee Williams, Ciaran Arthur, Gillian Lawless, Kathleen Bohan, Kevin Carroll, Jayne Wyatt, Melissa O’ Connor and Emma Mitchell.

The remainder of the evening was spent enjoying the superb food and company on offer. There were plenty of business cards exchanged, demonstrating the great business community we have here in Dublin and the openness to new ideas and new partnerships in the days, months and years ahead.

Ulster Bank was delighted to host the Meet Your Neighbours event with the IDA and we hope we can continue to bring together new and existing international businesses in this forum.

We look forward to the next event in Q3 of 2015.

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Wearing Religious Dress at Work: A recent decision of the US Supreme Court has found that Abercrombie & Fitch had discriminated against a job applicant by refusing to hire her on the basis that her head scarf or “hijab” clashed with its “classic East Coast collegiate style” dress code. This high profile case has led to a number of questions from Irish based employers on the issue of employees wearing religious dress at work.

Wearing Religious Dress at Work

The Abercrombie issue arose after a job applicant wore her hijab to an interview which the interviewer assumed the applicant wore for religious reasons. Staff members in that company were advised not to ask applicants about their religion. The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) claimed that in not asking, the company had violated equality guidelines and essentially created a loophole allowing for religious discrimination. In an 8-1 vote, The Supreme Court ruled that Abercrombie should have asked the applicant or at least told her of the ban so she had an opportunity to volunteer the information at which point the company and the applicant could have discussed how the headscarf might be accommodated in the workplace.

Religious dress at work: What’s the position in Ireland?

Cases of discrimination or unfair dismissal on the grounds of the wearing religious clothing are quite rare in Ireland and as such there is no precedent or case law to highlight what way the Irish courts or tribunals view this matter. The Employment Equality Acts do specifically state that discrimination on the grounds of religion is prohibited and one can safely assert that the wearing of religious garments or jewellery would come under this definition. Therefore, if an employer were to forbid the wearing of religious garments then the employer would be required to objectively justify the reasons behind that rule.

The UK perspective

Given the lack of Irish cases in this area, it is quite useful to look at how the matter has been addressed in the UK. In the case of Azmi -v- Kirklees Metropolitan Borough Council [2007] IRLR 434, the UK EAT considered the fairness of a dismissal of British Muslim teacher won the basis she refused to remove her religious veil (or ‘niqab’) in the presence of male colleagues. The school argued that the veil meant that children could not respond effectively to her teaching. The UK EAT found that she had not been discriminated against on the religious ground on the basis that removing the veil was necessary for her to perform her teaching job effectively and also the EAT were satisfied that a non-Muslim person would have been similarly instructed to remove a veil from their face had they worn one also.

Learning points

It is difficult to determine with any great certainty what an Irish tribunal would determine if faced with a similar scenario. In the US, Abercrombie were deemed to have discriminated against a job applicant on the basis that the company had a positive duty under US law to reasonably accommodate religious practices. In the UK, however, it was found that the school had not discriminated against an employee for demanding she remove her veil as the school would have applied this policy rigidly to every job applicant and employee, irrespective of religion.

However, these two cases do provide some useful guidance for employers in Ireland if considering a ban on certain garments. If an employer was to impose a dress code, they would have to justify the reason for doing so and make sure that they are not indirectly discriminating against an employee. The following reasons might be able to justify such a policy:

• The impact such garments have on an employee’s ability to perform their work duties.
• Any health and safety risk associated with such garments.
• Any industry rules in terms of protective equipment.

For example, in the UK Azmi case, the decision to dismiss was justified as it was concluded that the face-veil was obstructing the employee’s ability to communicate effectively with students and therefore inhibited her abilities to perform her duties appropriately. However, in the Abercrombie case in the US, there was no indication that the wearing of the headscarf would inhibit job performance as a sales assistant. Therefore, an employer will need a justifiable reason connected to a real business need, a genuine role requirement, or a health and safety requirement.

If you have any questions on this article then please do not hesitate to contact our 24 Hour Advice Service on 01 855 50 50.

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After over 20 years as a litigation lawyer I trained as a mediator in 2008 and have seen at first hand the benefits and cost-savings of mediation, particularly for SME’s who can ill afford to spend hard-earned profits on costly litigation.

Having seen those benefits for organisations at all levels I launched a new service in June 2015 called ‘The Better Way’
– www.thebetterwayto.com – a unique service aimed at preventing, diagnosing and resolving disputes through education, facilitation and mediation. The name was obvious – it is the better way – and I’ve seen it from all angles.

Resolving Business Disputes: A no-brainer for businesses

Consider this recent report in the media – a ‘spike’ in commercial litigation in the UK, thought to be due to the fact that a surge in litigation emerging from recession claims began 5 – 6 years ago, but only now coming to court.

In the same week another report said that private sector firms in Northern Ireland reported a marked acceleration in the rate of growth in both business activity and new orders in April. Indeed, April’s figures represented the fastest rate of expansion in both business activity and new orders since the survey began nearly 13 years ago.

How much of this reported growth in income for SME’s in NI will end up being allocated to the type of commercial litigation in the first report? How many of them will have to devote valuable resources including people, time, money, to dealing with that litigation?

There are no clear statistics on this, but what we do know is that another recent report – the sixth mediation audit undertaken by the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR) – estimated that mediation saves businesses around £2.4bn a year in wasted management time, damaged relationships, lost productivity and legal fees.

Even better, 85% of cases taken to mediation are successfully resolved.

It’s not hard to see how these figures are calculated since cases can take 5-6 years to reach court, but it’s not just the time; as the CEDR audit highlighted, it’s the collateral damage that drains businesses at a time when recovery is vital. Traditionally the winner in any litigation gets their costs paid, but even in this scenario it only means the legal costs; it does not reimburse the business for the hours of work spent by personnel preparing witness statements, bundles of documents, meetings with lawyers, copies of correspondence …..the list goes on.

Cheaper, faster and more flexible solutions

The reality is, crucially for businesses, that mediation is significantly cheaper than traditional court action. A commercial case listed for two days in the High Court could easily be expected to cost £50,000- £100,000, whereas mediating the same case will cost in the region of £5,000.

In a recent commercial mediation I conducted, the parties estimated the total costs in running the case, including a ten day high court trial, to be around £2.5m whilst the maximum value of the claim was £1.5m. Unsurprisingly, a day’s mediation and several follow-up meetings resolved the case for a small fraction of that cost.

There’s more than just a financial advantage; in court, solutions can be quite binary. There is an opportunity in mediation to preserve business relationships and come up with creative options that the courts cannot propose because of their limited remit.

It’s faster, cheaper and preserves business relationships – a ‘no brainer’ for businesses.

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