Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Abdou  Ladiane Seck

Gaam Capital Real State Agency

Act

Complaint Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Section 21 Equal Status Act, 2000

CA-00074315-001

12/08/2025

The complainant gave evidence on affirmation.

He signed a fixed term rent contract for two years.

After having moved to the property and explained to the estate agency that he would like to continue having HAP in this new property as he had been a HAP tenant in his previous property and it would help him with the rent.

Four days after moving to the property and two days after having had this conversation with him the landlord and in this case real estate agency director sent him a notice letter to leave the property.

The complainant submits that the only reason for this was that the respondent did not wish to accept HAP and he was not willing to be registered on RTB which is a requirement to get HAP.

The respondent says that he has rejected in the past a lot of people for being in HAP as he does not want to deal with HAP tenants and do not want to have to pay fees and be controlled by the government.

In his evidence he disputed the respondent’s assertions regarding the limits on his use of the premises.

At the resumed hearing the complainant relied on an Adjudication Decision of the RTB which had concluded that the nature of the accommodation was such that it qualified to be considered as a normal tenancy and that the original licence agreement  was void ab initio.

The respondent did not attend the resumed hearing but made the following submissions for the first hearing. 

The respondent relies on the nature of the Agreement as being eligible for a Licence, and not Tenancy. Mr. Seck occupies one room only at 532, North Circular Road. The property is a multi-occupancy house with a large shared communal area, kitchen (with oven and appliances), laundry area and other common parts used by other licensees.

Under the written document signed on  July 22nd, 2025, he occupies strictly under a “Licence to Occupy”. The Licence contract clearly states that he is a Licensee. Mr Seck was aware of that as it was explained to him during the viewing and as per the signed contract.

The complainant occupies a room in this house with a shared kitchen, shared living space, shared laundry area as described in the contract that we signed. He occupies this room, but it does not constitute an independent dwelling.

Services are provided by the Licensor, the respondent (through GAAM) which supplies all services and utilities (electricity, heating, broadband, waste, hot water) as there are no independent meters for utilities and amenities like bed linens and regular cleaning of common areas are also provided.

The respondent’s maintenance team retain control, possession and maintenance of the property and a right of entry in the house.

There is no landlord–tenant relationship. In other words, this is not a dwelling (and does not fall within the standard Residential tenancies act /RTB framework. The minimum legal size for a studio in Ireland is 32 sqm compared to this room, which is 11 sqm, this makes the shared aera and services essential. This is why it cannot be even registered by the official body responsible for this, the RTB.

For that reason, as explained to the complainant, in writing and on WhatsApp, this arrangement is a licence, and we are not allowed to register this to the  RTB.

Mr Seck contacted him within a few days of moving in (28–29 July) insisting that he must be registered with the RTB and that he must accept HAP. he did not refuse to cooperate with authorities; he simply explained that, in law, this is a licence in a building divided into rooms with shared facilities, services with all utilities and so we are not allowed to register it with RTB.

On July 30th, 2025 at 11:53 (midday), he received an email from the HAP Shared Services Centre stating that the HAP application for this property “has not been validated”.This HAP letter is attached. HAP authorities were already treating Mr. Seck’s application as incomplete or improper because he could not fulfil the required conditions.

This also shows that the HAP process was not blocked by him; rather, the application itself did not go through, and HAP contacted Mr Seck directly.

At no point did he refuse HAP because of who he is, his income, or any protected characteristic. My position has always been based on the legal structure of the property (licence / shared accommodation), not on Mr Seck personally.

There is therefore no discriminatory refusal of HAP. This is fundamentally a licence classification issue and not an equality issue. This is the result of a policy applied across similar licenses. Why would he have chosen Mr. Abdou Seck as a Licensee if he wanted to discriminate him.

Regarding the notice of Termination and Need for Accommodation Under the Licence, he is entitled to terminate on one month’s notice without reason (Clause 5.3). On 30 July 2025 written Notice of Termination was served giving Mr Seck 33 days’ notice to vacate,  more than required.

He has a genuine reason, although he is not obliged to have one: the flat where he currently lives is being sold, and he needs to return to the premises.

Today, more than three months after the termination date, Mr Abdou Seck still refuses to leave. He is now overholding and unlawfully occupying the room. As explained in the Termination Notice, he is seeking to regain use of his accommodation following the sale of the flat.

The respondent  completely reject the suggestion that he threatened or harassed Mr. Seck. The only timeshe met him in person after the Licence started were to deliver the written termination notice on 30 July). Given Mr. Abdou Seck immediate hostility over the notice (‘I am not going anywhere…”) and solicitor’s advice he felt prudent to have proof that the notice was received.

As owner, he was required to attend to provide access for aDublinCityCouncilHealth&Safetyinspection which the complainant requested.  On both occasions he was polite and professional. The Council inspection resultedinnoissues,andthecasewasclosed.

After he blocked the phone number on WhatsApp, all communication has been through email or his solicitor. Mr Seck is using any pretext, even a short phone call, to make accusations, whether through misunderstanding or misrepresentation.

Mr. Seck’s Health and Safety complaint to Dublin City Council, made only a few days after his arrival, required other licensees to leave their work to provide access, caused them unnecessary loss of time, and was ultimately dismissed by the officer.

The allegation that he aggressively is false and misrepresents normal lawful actions (serving notice and attending an inspection) as harassment. He  has managed this property for a long time without a single complaint of this nature from any other licensee.

The complainant has contacted the RTB, WRC, Dublin City Council, Gardaí, HAP and others, often on the basis of incorrect legal assumptions (that RTB registration must be done when it cannot be legally, that HAP must be accepted when it was even denied to him).

The respondent respects these institutions and their role in protecting people. However, in this case, the complaints are based on a mis-characterisation of the legal relationship. Rather than engaging constructively, he blocked his phone number and stated that he would not leave while continuing to overhold.

Mr Seck is a licensee. He has never been treated less favourably because of any protected ground. The dispute is about the legal nature of the arrangement, which is a Licence, RTB eligibility in a multi-occupancy licensed house; and his ongoing refusal to vacate after a valid termination.

These are essentially property-law and contractual issues.

In light of the above, The allegations of “discrimination, harassment and unlawful refusal of HAP” are unsupported by the facts, Mr. Seck’s complaint is based on false or irrelevant assertions, and on an attempt to re-cast a licence/overholding dispute as an equality issue; The respondent says he needs the accommodation back for his own use.

ThismatterconcernsthelegalclassificationandterminationofaLicenceto Occupy,notdiscriminationor anyequalityissue.Thesamepolicyisapplied consistently to all similar licenses in this multi-occupancy house, regardless of whothelicenseeisor theirbackground.

This was a difficult matter, and it will be helpful to set out the background in some detail.

The first hearing took place online on December 16th, 2025. The complaint is one of discrimination under the Equal Status Acts on the housing assistance (HAP’) ground. The dates on which the alleged discrimination took place were July 29th and August 12th, 2025.

A key issue arising between the parties was whether the ‘tenancy’ was eligible to be registered for HAP support. The complainant had entered into an agreement with this respondent described as a ‘Licence to Occupy’ and had signed a contract to that effect.

The respondent’s position was that a ‘Licence to Occupy’ is not eligible for HAP support. I address this below.

Prior to this, the complainant had made an application for HAP but while evidence was submitted that this had been refused by the local authority the complainant disputed this.

At this point, the respondent terminated the agreement and sought to evict the complainant. He did so on the not very credible basis that he personally had all of a sudden developed a need to move into the property in the few days between signing the agreement and becoming aware of the HAP issue. If true this was an extraordinary coincidence.

(There is correspondence associated with a HAP application to Dublin City Council in December 2025, but this postdates the WRC complaint by four months.)

The only issue however, before the WRC is whether the respondent discriminated against the complainant on the HAP ground on the dates stated above.

As noted, the first hearing took place online and proved difficult to manage due to language difficulties and a lack of discipline on the part of the parties, exacerbated by the online format.

In the course of the complainant’s evidence, he had made various assertions about the status of the property.

 He submitted third party documentation in support of his position. However, there were no witnesses to offer direct evidence, or to allow the respondent to respond to any written submissions. Specifically, a written opinion was submitted from the charity Threshold, although no witness was present to confirm its authenticity or to give evidence.

While he disputed its validity, the complainant had only partially addressed the legal argument raised by the respondent about the true nature of his tenancy, the nature of the agreement and its eligibility for registration for HAP.  

Accordingly, both parties were invited to make further submissions on the two related controversial points.

The first was whether the premises met the criteria for a property to be only a ‘Licence to Occupy’, as argued by the respondent. The complainant had not made any written submissions on this point and there were conflicts in the evidence between the parties as to the nature of the complainant’s access to and usage of various amenities and facilities in the property, relevant to an assessment of the status of the letting.

The complainant confirmed his understanding of this issue that same day by email.

His email contains the following which reasonably accurately represents what the parties were asked to do.

The adjudication did not conclude yet as the adjudicator requested him the following proof: 

1.       Based on the Irish Law, how can he proof that the property he is renting does not meet the criteria to be a licence to occupy and it's therefore a tenancy?

2.       Are properties under licence to occupy inside eligibility for HAP?

He continued to say.

‘He will start arranging in person inspection from either Dublin city council officer or RTB officer as both are government entities. he is not sure how long can this take to first schedule the inspection in order to determine the contract type and then he will also contact the HAP section to request them another document where they mention the law that allows HAP for licences.

Please in the meantime put this case on hold if needed and inform the Adjudicator that he might need more time.

he will keep you posted and share with you and information and or documents he receive

While the complainant made no reference to an imminent RTB hearing, this accurately reflects the basis on which the hearing had been adjourned.

It is sometimes possible to then proceed to a decision on the basis of such post hearing submissions (normally with prior notification to and/or agreement of the parties) but it may also be necessary in the interests of a fair process to resume the hearing to allow such matters as have been raised to be properly controverted, witnesses to be heard, etc., if necessary.

On January 13th, 2026, before any of the requested submissions had been received, but anticipating the likelihood that a further hearing would be required (for reasons discussed below) and in the interests of avoiding a scheduling delay, I requested the WRC Scheduling Team to re-schedule the case for a hearing.

On January 27th, the complainant made a further submission to the WRC which included a Decision of the Adjudication Service of the RTB on a reference by the complainant made on July 29th, 2025. This sought a determination on the status of the property, and therefore of the correct status of his legal agreement with the respondent. (It is important to recall that the reference to the WRC of this case was on August 12th, 2025.)

The RTB hearing of the complaint was on January 14th, 2026. It appears from the report of the Decision that the respondent did not attend. That hearing was apparently shown video evidence of the property (which had not been made available to the first WRC hearing).

The RTB has upheld the complainant’s position and found the original contract between the parties to be void and unenforceable.  But it did so some six months after the event and a month after the first WRC hearing.

The RTB Decision initially submitted to the WRC by the complainant was hand paginated by the complainant, the pages, with rare exceptions, are out of sequence and a number of pages were completely missing. While it is likely to be authentic, in the form it was submitted it did not meet the bar to be considered as evidence purely as a written submission and this  reinforced my decision to proceed to an in-person hearing.

Following the issue of notification of the resumed hearing the complainant subsequently contacted the WRC variously saying that he would not attend a resumed hearing and/or that he wished a Decision to issue having exclusive regard to the Decision of the RTB Adjudication Service (and the limited online proceedings on December 16th, 2025).

This was in spite of his stated request that the hearing remain ‘on hold’ and the confirmation of his understanding of the basis on which the first hearing ad been adjourned.

But even if the RTB Decision can be taken to determine the complainant’s eligibility status at the material time that must be seen as a preliminary issue and there remain a number of other issues to be decided, specifically the core issue of how to determine whether the respondent discriminated against the complainant in respect of his HAP application.

Specifically, the respondent had a right to be heard on these new developments. The WRC hearing on December 16th could not get beyond this issue, hence the request for further submissions.

Because, even taking the issue of the complainant’s eligibility to have been resolved it does not follow that this can be presumed to be determinative of the complaint, which is that the respondent discriminated against him, or that there are no matters on which the parties need be heard.

The respondent had set out his position as follows.

Mr Seck contacted him within a few days of moving in (28–29 July) insisting that he must be registered with the RTB and that he must accept HAP. he did not refuse to cooperate with authorities; he simply explained that, in law, this is a licence in a building divided into rooms with shared facilities, services with all utilities and so we are not allowed to register it with RTB.

On 30 July 2025 at 11:53 (midday), he received an email from the HAP Shared Services Centre stating that the HAP application for this property “has not been validated”.This HAP letter is attached. HAP authorities were already treating Mr. Seck’s application as incomplete or improper because he could not fulfil the required conditions.

This also shows that the HAP process was not blocked by him; rather, the application itself did not go through, and HAP contacted Mr Seck directly.

At no point did he refuse HAP because of who he is, his income, or any protected characteristic. My position has always been based on the legal structure of the property (licence/shared accommodation), not on Mr Seck personally.

The respondent also corresponded with the WRC seeking the issue of a Decision in the atter and making reference to other legal proceedings. This was despite the very clear basis on which the first hearing had been adjourned.

To proceed to a Decision in these circumstances without hearing the parties would be to bypass a fundamental aspect of what constitutes a fair hearing of all the relevant evidence. There was no evidence adduced at the first hearing, for example of any role by the respondent in the rejection of the HAP application on July 30th (that referred to above as having come from HAP shared services and disputed by the complainant), and the respondent denied any role in it.

The situation between the parties is complicated by the fact of parallel court proceedings, although in reality, on these facts, these do not have a bearing on the merits of the complaint before the WRC, nor can they result in some acceleration of our process at the expense for fair procedure.

The complainant has also made important points about his personal circumstances, but again to accommodate these would be to accede to a short circuiting of the requirements to hold a full investigation into the complaint which  is not possible.

Accordingly, I proceeded to a second hearing which took place on April 7th, 2026.  The respondent did not attend

The following issues arise.

Is the accommodation eligible for HAP? If not, no further issue arises.

If it is, the issue becomes whether the respondent breached the Act in obstructing an application by the complainant. This then, was the subject of the resumed hearing.

As noted, the core issue is whether the respondent’s submission that a rental agreement known as a “Licence to Occupy” agreed between the parties in July 2025, which the landlord believed did not meet the criteria to be eligible for HAP and refused the application, is in fact excluded.

The complainant’s evidence was that in July 2025, the landlord refused to cooperate with his HAP application and moved immediately to evict him from the premises on the basis that the landlord required the property for his own personal use.

Further to a RTB hearing in January 2026 it was determined that the arrangement qualified as a tenancy and the “Licence to Occupy” agreement was null and void. 

Section 6 (1) (c) of the Equal Status Act 2000 (hereinafter ESA) prohibits discrimination in the provision of accommodation in the following terms.

“6.—(1) A person shall not discriminate in—……..…( c) [subject to subsection (1A), providing accommodation] or any services or amenities related to accommodation or ceasing to provide accommodation or any such services or amenities.”

Section 3 (3B) provides … “For the purposes of section 6(1)(c), the discriminatory grounds shall (in addition to the grounds specified in subsection (2)) include the ground that as between any two persons, that one is in receipt of rent supplement (within the meaning of section 6(8)), housing assistance (construed in accordance with Part 4 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2014) or any payment under the Social Welfare Acts and the other is not (the “housing assistance ground”.

Further clarity is provided by the authors Judy Walsh and Rory Hearne in their study Housing Assistance and Discrimination published by IHREC in 2021, which addresses  the question of whether a licence agreement is covered under s.6 1( c ) of the Act. They state as follows;

“Clarification is required as to whether licensees are protected by the housing assistance ground.84 In a 2019 decision, the WRC suggests that persons occupying premises under certain form of license are not protected.

However, the precise basis for that finding is unclear since the applicable ESA provisions do not appear to apply exclusively to tenancies. The operative provisions, section 6(1)(c) and section 3(3B) do not specify what form of interests are covered by the term ‘providing accommodation’.86 Nor is the term defined elsewhere in the ESA. The adjudication officer in a case about a mobile home occupied under a ‘loose arrangement’, noted that his function was “to determine whether or not discriminatory acts occurred irrespective of the actual legal definition of an “accommodation””.87 As a remedial social statute, the ESA should be interpreted ‘widely and liberally’.88 That interpretive approach suggests that persons living in accommodation with the knowledge or permission of the owner and paying ‘rent’, should be covered by its terms, as are persons seeking access to accommodation.”

This indicates that the term “providing accommodation” asset out at s.6 (1) (c) is a broad term and therefore would include a “Licence to Occupy” agreement.

This is particularly the case when interpreting it through the lens of a remedial social statue as provided for in several Superior Court judgements, such as, per Ms Justice O’Malley in, G v Department of Social Protection [2015] IEHC 419, (para 161).

I also endorse the views of the authors as set out above.  Given that, and while I note the RTB Decision it is not necessary to make any decision on the applicability of the RTB adjudication to the facts of this case which turns simply on the respondent’s actions in relation to a HAP application.

The complainant has satisfied the burden of proof set out at s.38 (A) in establishing facts that raise an inference of discrimination relating to alleged conduct prohibited under s.6 (1) (c) based on the ground of housing assistance as set out under section 3(3B).

The burden of proof then shifts to the respondent who initially submitted that he refused to consider the complainant’s application for HAP on the basis that the rental arrangement classified as a “Licence to Occupy” did not further to his belief, meet the criteria to be eligible for HAP. The fact remains that he did refuse; his reason is not relevant.

I take into account that sworn evidence was provided by the complainant at the hearing that one of the reasons the landlord preferred a “license to occupy” arrangement was that he did not want to deal with HAP.

In my view the defence based on the evidence adduced at the first hearing, (and again bearing in mind the respondent’s unexplained failure to attend the second hearing) and the reasons put forward by the respondent do not form the basis of a valid defence unrelated to the HAP ground.

It appears to me given the facts that the respondent’s defence could be more correctly classified as his understanding of the scheme (as opposed to his belief) that he could have verified with the relevant section of the Council that administers HAP to determine whether the “license to occupy” was covered under the scheme.

As it transpires there was also direct (and uncontested) evidence that the respondent entered into this type of agreement with the deliberate intention of avoiding entering the HAP scheme. In my view this would not form the basis of a valid defence as provided under the provisions of the ESA, unrelated to the HAP ground.

Accordingly, the respondent has breached the Equal Status Act on the housing ground, and the complaint succeeds.

 I consider the respondent’s actions to be on the high edge of the spectrum of gravity, and this is reflected in my award of compensation.

Complaint CA-00074315-001 succeeds and I award the complainant €12,000 for the breach of his rights under the Act.

Equal Status, Housing/HAP