A woman who said she was turned away from a Kilkenny hotel when her partner said she would bring their guide dog will have to pay €5,000 in compensation for discriminatory treatment.
The Labor Relations Commission was told that the hotel manager objected to the guide dog on the grounds that his own dogs would “barking all night” if it was there.
Pamela McKeogh’s claim against Kilkenny House Hotel under the Equal Status Act 2000 was upheld in a decision published this morning, nearly three years since her story was published on RTÉ’s Liveline in November 2019.
Her boyfriend, Kevin Ryan, told the Labor Relations Commission in January that after he emailed the hotel to mention that the couple would be bringing a guide dog for the night on Nov. 19, 2019, he replied “dogs were not allowed”.
He said that he tried to solve the problem by calling the hotel and then calling the hotel, and finally spoke to the manager on the phone.
The manager told him, “Look, I’m going to cancel your booking. I have dogs myself and those dogs will be barking and going mad if you bring your guide dog,” Mr Ryan told the tribunal, reports RTE.
I said: ‘But you can’t do that, it’s a guide dog.’ The manager’s response was, “I don’t want to hear any more about it,” Mr Ryan added, reported RTE.
He said that he and Ms. McKeogh had to find another place to stay that night.
The hotel denied discrimination and said the couple’s online booking was subject to conditions.
In January, his attorney Mary Molloy said guests with guide dogs can only be accommodated in “specific rooms that do not have carpets, that do not have stairs or other impediments, that are equally accessible and are located at ground-floor level. The room on offer was not a specifically designated room which could accommodate animals, nor was such a room requested in circumstances where the person making the booking surely was aware that they required a specific type of room,” she said, reports RTE.
The handicapped room “simply wasn’t available,” she said.
In January, the court was told that the hotel’s manager, Edward Dore, was too ill to attend the hearing and testify.
The matter was rescheduled for a hearing in June, when the case officer noted that Mr. Dore was unable to attend again.
On that date, Mr. Ryan said, “I have never in my life been treated so badly as a customer. Never. Not only are they discriminating against my girlfriend but I feel they are making me out to be a liar. I feel really hurt today that I have been dragged through this again,” he added, reported RTE.
Molloy told Mr. Ryan that there had been “absolutely no intent from my client to discriminate” against him or Ms McKeogh.
Judge Andrew Heavey wrote that he did not accept the hotel’s claim that it allowed guide dogs and simply had no rooms available for overnight stays.
He wrote that he accepted Mr. Ryan’s account of his dealings with the hotel manager and found that the message sent the day after the reservation was “clear and unambiguous”.
“The complainant was discriminated against on the grounds of disability,” he wrote, and ordered the Kilkenny House Hotel to pay Ms McKeogh €5,000 in compensation, reported RTE.
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