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“Unwanted Guests” was the headline of a memorandum listing Irish surnames and posted on the intranet of the British holiday park company Pontins. The memorandum was distributed to staff at the company, which has six holiday parks in Britain and has been in operation since 1946.
Staff were asked to block the booking of leads with those names. The staff monitored calls and declined or canceled bookings made by people with an Irish accent or last name.
By refusing to serve guests of a certain race or ethnic group, Pontins was “directly discriminating on the basis of race” and in violation of the UK Equality Act 2010, Britain’s Equality and Human Rights Commission said. , who investigated the matter and reached an agreement with the operator of the travel park.
The Pontins memo read: “Please note that multiple guests are not welcome at Pontins. However, some of these will still try to book, especially during school holidays. Our Director of Operations has informed us that we do not want these guests to enter our parks. Please be careful with the following names for future reservations. “
A list of about 40 surnames followed: Boylan, Boyle, Carney, Carr, Cash, Connors, Corcoran, Delaney, Doherty, Dorran, Gallagher, Horan, Keefe, Kell, Leahy, Lee, MacLaughlin, McAlwick, McCully, McDonagh, McGinley, McGinn, McGuiness, McHarg, McLaughan, McMahon, Millighan, Mongans, Murphy, Nolan, O’Brien, O’Connell, O’Donnell, O’Donoghue, O’Mahoney, O’Reilly, Sheriadan, Stokes, Walch, Ward.
The note entitled “Unwanted Guests” lists Irish surnames and is posted on the intranet of the British holiday park company Pontins.
The memo alerted people who made phone or email reservations at Pontins to blacklist these names. Some names appeared to be phonetically misspelled: for example, McGuiness, Sheriadan, and Walch.
The undated note, published in a story in the UK newspaper “i”, is illustrated by a drawing of a wizard in a cape, holding wands in both hands, with the caption: “You shall not pass!”
The EHRC discovered that Pontins had been monitoring calls to its call center and subsequently refused to process reservations and canceled reservations for people with these last names.
Some of the surnames are common within the traveling community.
Martin Collins, Co-Director of the Pavee Point Traveler and Roma Center in Dublin, told The Irish Times: “This shows not only how discrimination against travelers is an ongoing problem, but also discrimination against Irish people in general in the UK. People with an Irish accent were subjected to negative treatment by Pontins, as well as by Irish travelers.
“Banning a particular ethnic group is a despicable practice. It prevents people from participating equitably in society and this case shows the importance of legislation in this area.
“We know from recent reports that there are a large number of reports of incidents of discrimination among Irish nomads and we urge the government to raise awareness of equality legislation as part of its next National Action Plan against Racism.”
The British Prime Minister’s office condemned the blacklist as “completely unacceptable”. A spokesperson said: “No one in the UK should be discriminated against because of their race or ethnicity.”
The Minister for Development Assistance Abroad and Diaspora, Colm Brophy, welcomed the actions of the ECHR “in response to the numerous illegal and discriminatory practices of Pontins to exclude travelers from their holiday parks”.
“I understand that these actions have caused considerable harm to the Irish community in Great Britain.”
“This racial discrimination is unacceptable and I condemn the use of discriminatory practices by such companies,” he said in a statement.
Pontins is owned by Britannia Hotel Group, which has signed a legal agreement with the EHRC to address discrimination. Alastair Pringle, executive director of the EHRC, said: “It is difficult not to make comparisons with an ‘unwanted guest list’ and the signs displayed in hotel windows 50 years ago, explicitly prohibiting the Irish and blacks.
The Britannia Group is committed to conducting annual training courses for staff on equality and diversity.
Pringle has asked Pontins to “fundamentally review” its policies and practices following the discovery of a list of “undesirable” guests.
Pringle told RTÉ radio’s News at One that the commission had been contacted for the first time by a whistleblower in February 2020, who expressed concern about some of the policies and practices Pontins was pursuing, which they thought were particularly discriminatory. .
“So we’ve looked at this and in fact some of the practices involved were rejecting any bookings made by people with an Irish accent or last name.
“The list is quite long, there must be about 30 names on the list that they gave to the call center that took the reservations. There was a list of names and they were titled “Unwelcome Guests.” There is also a policy that prohibited tourists from arriving in commercial vehicles and that potentially or specifically excluded Roma / traveler communities from reaching the holiday parks. “
Pringle said the commission was concerned as Gypsy / nomadic communities are a racial group protected by the Equality Act. “That was specifically where our interest came from and this was direct discrimination for us.”
Pontins had accepted that they were not acting legally, he said, and the commission had committed them to a formal agreement, under the Equality Act.
“They are going to do an investigation on this unwanted guest list, see where it came from, and make sure the proper action is taken. They will provide enhanced training on equality law for their staff.
“It was clearly a set of policies and practices, it was not about one or two people deciding that they thought this was a bad thing, this is clearly a policy and a practice and that is why we are interested in seeing it as a problem. .
“They should take a pretty fundamental look at how these policies and practices came about, why someone thought they were acceptable in the first place.”
The commission will be monitoring the situation for 12 months, he said.
The Irish Times has contacted Pontins for comment.
Additional information: Vivienne Clarke and PA
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