By Catherine Shanahan
SUPERMARKET chain Lidl destroyed records containing the age of job applicants when it discovered it was under investigation by the Equality Tribunal for age discrimination.The matter came to light during the investigation of a complaint by a 51-year-old man who said he was not interviewed for the job of district manager at Lidl because he was too old.

Responding to a job seeking candidates “ideally with not more than two-three years’ experience in a commercial environment”, Tom O’Connor said this limit on experience meant the company was geared towards the recruitment of younger people.

It was his third time unsuccessfully applying for a job at Lidl. Mr O’Connor, who had five-and-a-half years’ sales experience, was not called for an interview.

The equality officer who investigated his complaint, Geraldine Coyle, asked Lidl to supply her with details about the age and experience of other applicants and whether they were called for interview. The records she asked for were for the period July 1 to December 31, 2002, as the job had been advertised in the Irish Examiner on July 5, 2002.

In response, Lidl said “following an exhaustive search of its records”, it was unable to retrieve the CVs and application forms of the applicants for district manager positions for this period.

“According to the respondent (Lidl), this information was destroyed in December 2002,” said Ms Coyle. She said the destruction of other applications “took place after the complainant (Mr O’Connor) referred his complaint to the Equality Tribunal and Lidl had been notified”.

She said this deliberate destruction of records in the knowledge that a complaint had been made was “sufficient to raise an inference of discrimination on the grounds of age as alleged”.

She judged Mr O’Connor had been indirectly discriminated against on age grounds and ordered Lidl to pay him €5,000.

She instructed Lidl to refrain from specifying a limit on experience; to remove date of birth requirements on application forms; and to retain recruitment details for 12 months.