What is a disability?
Definition of Disability
The Equality Act, 2010 (EA) generally defines a disabled person as someone who has a mental or physical impairment that has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on the person's ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.
This differs slightly from the definition in the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), which also required the disabled person to show that an adversely affected normal day-to-day activity involved one of a list of capacities such as mobility, speech, or hearing.
What constitutes a mental or physical impairment?What is the difference for disabled people between the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and the Equality Act 2010?
The EA generally carries forward the protection provided for disabled people by the DDA. However, there are key differences.
- The EA protects disabled people against direct discrimination in areas other than just employment, such as the supply of goods, facilities and services.
- The EA introduced improved protection from discrimination that occurs because of something connected with a person's disability.
- The EA introduced the principle of indirect discrimination for disability.
- The EA applies one trigger point at which there is a duty to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people. This trigger point is where a disabled person would be at a substantial disadvantage compared to non-disabled people if the adjustment was not made.
- The EA extends protection from harassment that is related to disability and applies this protection to areas beyond work.
- The EA provides protection from direct disability discrimination and harassment where this is based on a person's association with a disabled person, or on a false perception that the person is disabled.
- The EA limits the type of enquiries that a potential employer can make about disability and health when recruiting new staff.
