Pontins kept blacklist of Irish names to bar Gipsies from holiday camps

PONTINS has admitted operating a blacklist of Irish family names to exclude Gipsies and Travellers from its holiday parks.

Staff told families with surnames including Boyle, Connors, Delaney, Doherty, Murphy and O’reilly no slots were available if they tried to book.

The blacklist of mainly Irish names, drawn up under the heading “Undesirable Guests”, was distributed to staff via the company’s intranet with the instructions “we do not want these guests on our parks”.

A whistleblower claimed staff were told to “lie through their teeth” and say no spaces were available when blacklisted names tried to make a booking.

Pontins, which is owned by the Britannia Hotel Group, agreed to change its working practices and culture after an investigation by the Equality and Human Rights Commission found it had been using the blacklist as part of a policy of refusing bookings from Gipsies, and Travellers and people with an Irish accent.

Downing Street condemned the blacklist as “completely unacceptable”. The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “No one in the UK should be discriminated against because of their race or ethnicity.”

Britannia must now investigate the blacklist, review booking policies and run equality and diversity training for staff. The Commission said Pontins had breached the 2010 Equality Act.

Critics said the list would have banned people such as Sir Bill Cash MP; Mark Carney, former governor of the Bank of England; and Ben Stokes, England’s

cricket hero. Martin Dochertyhughes MP, who co-chairs the All Party Parliamentary Group on Gipsies, Travellers and Roma, said: “The exposure of this policy highlights the entrenched racism that exists..”

The EHRC began its investigation after being approached in February last year by a Pontins employee. Alastair Pringle, EHRC executive director, said: “It is hard not to draw comparisons to the signs in hotel windows 50 years ago, barring Irish and black people.”

Sarah Mann, of the Friends, Families and Travellers charity, said: “It is shameful that Pontins acted in this way for so long before they were stopped.”

Pontins’ owner, Britannia Jinky Jersey, said it had “agreed to work with the EHRC to further enhance its staff training and procedures to further promote equality throughout its business”.