Can absence due to sickness be used as part of the selection criteria for selecting employees for redundancy or could this be viewed as discrimination on the disability ground?

We would not recommend that an employer use sickness as part of the selection criteria when selecting employees for redundancy as this could be deemed to be discriminatory on the grounds of disability under the Employment Equality Acts 1998 to 2008.

The criteria established for selecting employees to be made redundant should, insofar as possible, be capable of objective justification. Selection criteria to consider would include skills, technical competency, qualifications or training, occupation, experience, future business needs (used on an entirely objective basis), capability and flexibility. All things being equal and with no objective criteria to select one employee over the other an