The Northern Ireland framework today

For Northern Ireland employers, the DDA bans discrimination against disabled job applicants and staff throughout the entire employment journey. It also includes a core duty to make reasonable adjustments. How tribunals interpret these duties is influenced by the Equality Commission's Code of Practice, and essentially, employers must take reasonable steps to remove or reduce significant disadvantages caused by policies or physical barriers.

Beyond workplace duties, Northern Ireland public bodies have extra disability equality obligations under sections 49A and 49B of the DDA. They need to promote positive attitudes and encourage participation from disabled people, publishing Disability Action Plans to show how they'll do this. This works alongside section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998, which provides that Public Authorities need to promote equality of opportunity, including for disabled people. For public sector employer, private employers working with Public Authorities and contractors, these duties mean higher expectations for proactive adjustments, inclusive design, and clear reporting.

The DDA’s disability definition is quite broad: if a physical or mental impairment significantly impacts daily life long-term, someone is likely covered. This includes physical and mental health issues, neurodivergence, learning disabilities, and automatically qualifies conditions like cancer, MS, and HIV from diagnosis. While there are a few exceptions (like addictions or easily corrected vision problems), conditions are assessed based on their duration and impact.

GB’s evolution from the DDA and key differences with NI

The 2010 Equality Act in Great Britain brought various discrimination laws together, but it doesn’t apply to Northern Ireland. This means NI still uses nine key separate pieces of legislation, creating a patchwork of discrimination law and has led to notable differences in how disability discrimination cases are handled here. The key differences are set out below.

Discrimination 'arising from' disability and indirect discrimination

Following a key House of Lords decision (London Borough of Lewisham v Malcolm), Great Britain introduced 'discrimination arising from disability' and extended indirect discrimination in the Equality Act. Northern Ireland, however, didn't make these changes and continues to have the concept of ‘disability related’ discrimination. This means NI claimants have a harder job and to prove less favourable treatment with a comparator, rather than relying on the broader GB concept of treatment 'because of” something arising in consequence of' disability. 

Pre- employment health questions

Asking health questions before a job offer is also treated differently. GB's Equality Act largely prohibits pre-employment health inquiries, but NI has no direct equivalent ban. Despite this, NI employers still risk discrimination if they use these questions to filter out disabled applicants or fail to adjust processes. The smart move is to only ask about adjustments needed to allow job a applicant to participate in the selection process, safety, or lawful vetting, and to keep medical info separate from hiring decisions. Reasonable adjustments to carry out the role should also be considered if the disabled candidate has been successful in the recruitment process.

Specific 'capacities'

In NI, employees still need to identify which 'capacities' (a list of abilities) are affected by their impairment, which can make it harder to meet the disability definition. GB removed these 'capacities' from its definition under the Equality Act, making it an easier threshold to meet.

Associative and perceived discrimination

GB legislated for associative and perceived discrimination, plus broader harassment protections, but Northern Ireland didn't fully adopt these. Public functions and education laws also vary. For this reason, employers operating across both regions, it is important to review policies and training to ensure compliance, which may mean having separate NI and GB policies and training.

What else is changing in relation to disability discrimination in NI?

Changing nature of disabilities and surging tribunal claims

The past decade has brought more open discussion of neurodiversity, menopause and post‑viral conditions, focusing attention on how the DDA’s definition applies in practice and whether it is keeping pace with emerging trends and developments. When the DDA was enacted nearly 30 years ago, the focus was primarily on physical disabilities, now, there is a greater emphasis on, and uncertainty around, mental health and neurodiverse conditions, which changes the context in which the DDA operates. In GB the EHRC has recently made clear that in some circumstances menopause can amount to a disability, and we expect that tribunals in Northern Ireland will also take this approach.

Neurodiversity is now increasingly a major feature of disability discrimination litigation. According to data from the Ministry of Justice, ADHD‑related claims in GB have risen by 750% since 2020 (from six in 2020 to 51 in 2025), with autism and dyslexia claims also almost doubling. Drivers include awareness, diagnosis and challenges to recruitment and testing, and practical, low‑cost changes (assistive tech, clear written instructions, quiet spaces, structured communication, for example)often amount to  ‘reasonable adjustments’ when implemented promptly and reviewed regularly. 

The coronavirus pandemic has also accelerated these shifts. Long Covid has emerged as a significant, often fluctuating condition, workplace anxiety has increased (including around commuting and crowded settings) and ways of working have permanently broadened to include hybrid and home working. In Northern Ireland, reasonable adjustments now commonly include hybrid/remote working where duties allow, phased returns, modified attendance triggers, flexible hours and breaks, quiet or low stimulus spaces, alternative meeting formats (video, off camera or recorded), clearer written instructions, temporary role modifications, and appropriate equipment for home set ups. It’s fair to say that the DDA wouldn’t have predicted these types of reasonable adjustments in response to a greater variety of conditions and circumstances requiring them.

Disability pay reporting: paused, but not going away

There has been understandable interest in whether Northern Ireland would extend pay gap reporting beyond gender, which in itself has not yet been enacted. Despite Northern Ireland initially leading the way with a proposal to extend gender pay gap reporting to include ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting (the intention was first laid out in the Employment (Northern Ireland) Act 2016), in its 2025 consultation response, the Department for Communities confirmed that disability and ethnicity pay gap reporting will not proceed at this stage. 

The Department considers that the gender pay regulations are not the appropriate legal vehicle to report on other characteristics and noted both the statutory context for equality monitoring and the practical difficulties with data quality and methodology. 

The particular difficulty with this form of reporting is that an employee’s status will often vary over time, for example, if they become disabled during employment and employees may often not want to disclose their disability, or even see themselves as disabled. 

Disability and ethnicity reporting is due to come into force in GB under the forthcoming Equality (Race and Disability) Bill, and the Department plans to keep a watching brief on developments in this area to consider whether this form of reporting doe sin fact have a place in the pay gap reporting regime in NI.

A new NI disability strategy for employers to engage with

The most significant policy development is the Department for Communities’ Disability and Work Strategy consultation. The strategy sets a clear outcome framework: an additional 50,000 disabled people in work by March 2036, a disability employment rate of 50% and growing, and more disabled people in better jobs, with a reduction in the disability pay gap and underemployment and improved pathways into self‑employment. The scope explicitly embraces disabled people, people with health conditions and people who are neurodivergent. The strategy emphasises job quality as well as quantity, stronger partnership with business (including Access to Work), and links to pay and underemployment. The consultation can be found here and closes on 12 January 2026.

The Committee inquiry: is change coming?

In June 2024, Northern Ireland's Committee for the Executive Office launched an inquiry, calling for evidence on the differences in equality legislation between the regions of the UK and the Republic of Ireland. The aim was to pinpoint where Northern Ireland's equality laws differ from other jurisdictions and to understand the impact, but also to examine how Brexit has led to divergence in equality legislation between Northern Ireland, the EU, and other jurisdictions. While it's not yet clear what changes, if any, might result from this inquiry, the rising number of claims suggests that targeted GB‑style reforms, could well return to the agenda.

Conclusion

Three decades on, the Disability Discrimination Act still governs disability rights at work in Northern Ireland, a context that has shifted since Great Britain modernised its laws under the Equality Act. Disability-related disputes, particularly concerning neurodiversity and mental health, have surged, alongside increased hybrid working and broader requirements for reasonable adjustments. Outside of legal disputes, progress is being made to embrace disabled people in the workplace. While disability pay gap reporting is paused in Northern Ireland, a recent Committee inquiry appears to recognise the legislative gaps that need to be addressed and raises a critical question, whether it is time for Northern Ireland to modernise its approach to disability equality.