The owners of the Charleville Park Hotel in Co Cork have been successful in their appeal against a €22,000 award to a Traveller couple who claimed they and their children had been discriminated against when they were refused three nights accommodation.
The hotel had appealed the fine to Cork Circuit Appeals Court claiming that there was no case of discrimination against the family. They said that they were only adhering to their strict policy of having guests book and pay via a credit card when they declined to give accommodation to the family.
Judge James O’Donoghue said the ruling in the case hinged on whether the Charleville Park Hotel was entitled to have a booking policy with a requirement to have a credit card.
He said the couple who made the complaint of discrimination were two highly respectable individuals. Bridget O’Reilly told the court that she and her partner Philip O'Neill and their two children were declared homeless because their caravan was deemed unfit for habitation.
Judge O’ Donoghue said that it was clear that the hotel required, among its terms, that customers would have a credit card when booking a room. He described the couple as having been "oversensitive about their perception of discrimination".
Hotel owner Pat McDonagh welcomed the ruling.
"It was never a case that I felt should have gone the way it did," he said.
"There was no discrimination whatsoever here. Our credit card policy applies across the board in the hotel and they were no different from anyone else in this respect."
"The same applies to everyone. That is the policy and, in fact, it is the policy for most hotels in Ireland and around the world."
In the discrimination case taken earlier this year, WRC adjudicator Thomas O’Driscoll ordered the hotel to pay €8,000 each to Bridget O’Reilly and her partner Philip O'Neill and €3,000 each to their two children.
The WRC heard that in September 2018, Bridget O’Reilly and her family were declared homeless by Cork County Council. Ms O’Reilly made an online booking using a debit card for three nights at Charleville Park Hotel.
The family went to the hotel with a Department of Social Protection community welfare officer, who had a cheque for accommodation for three nights accommodation.
However, the receptionist on duty said that they informed the family that they required a credit card as security against payment.
Bridget and her family left but returned to the Charleville Park Hotel the next morning after their solicitor found that rooms were available for booking on the hotel website and at Bookings.com.
The solicitor offered to pay with her personal credit card, but the receptionist said that the booking must be in the name of the person looking for accommodation.
Ms O’Reilly told the WRC hearing of how humiliated she felt when she was refused accommodation at the hotel.
In his findings, Mr O’Driscoll said the hotel’s conduct in refusing accommodation "not only breached a socially remedial statute but also fell below the threshold of decency that reasonable people expect of the hospitality sector."
