The Public Sector Equality and Human Rights Duty is a legal obligation on public bodies contained in Section 42 of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Act 2014. It sets out two separate but interconnected Duties: an overarching Duty to have regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, promote equality of opportunity and protect the human rights of public sector staff, service users, and policy beneficiaries, across all their functions and a strategic Duty to undertake three steps, to:

– Assess: carry out an assessment of equality and human rights issues facing the identified groups for the Duty and relevant to their functions

– Address: develop policies, plans and actions to address these issues; and

– Report: report annually on progress and achievements in relation to those actions.

The identified groups for the Duty are:

– groups covered by the nine protected grounds under equality legislation: gender (including transgender people and people transitioning to their true gender); civil status; family status (including lone parents and carers); age; disability; sexual orientation; race (encompassing race, skin colour, nationality and ethnic or national origins); religion (any or no religious belief); and membership of the Traveller community;

– groups covered by the ground of socio-economic status, who are at risk of or experiencing poverty and social exclusion, including working-class people, people experiencing rural disadvantage, and ex-offenders; and

– individual rights holders under relevant human rights instruments.

In implementing the Duty, Donegal ETB has undertaken the following initiatives:

Donegal ETB has developed an implementation plan for the Duty (which you can read here), which includes:

– Our equality and human rights values statement, which establishes our ambition for the Duty and its implementation in Donegal ETB.

– Our assessment of the equality and human rights issues facing the identified groups for the Duty that are relevant to our various functions, as required under the Duty and to enable us to give effect to both the overarching Duty and the strategic Duty.

– Our strategy in enabling and pursuing an ongoing implementation of the Duty, both overarching and strategic, in Donegal ETB.

Donegal ETB prepares an annual action plan to give effect to our implementation plan for the Duty each year (action plan 2025).