Over 50 entities were identified for having published discriminatory adverts for vacant posts, a report by the National Commission for the Promotion of Equality published yesterday shows.

In 2016, the NCPE identified 57 adverts found to have discriminated on the basis of gender, race or age. The majority, 49, were found to be discriminatory on the basis of gender.

Another five adverts were discriminatory on the basis of age, while there were two instances of adverts which discriminated on the basis of both gender and age.

The NCPE identified one case of gender and race discrimination in job vacancy adverts.

In most cases, action was taken by the entities, which changed the content

The commission found that there were 48 instance in which entities had to address discrimination in advertising text, eight for discriminatory images and one advert that contained both problematic text and images.

In most cases, the report states, action was taken by the entities, which changed the discriminatory content. The NCPE reported that while a downward trend had been noted two years ago, when the figures fell to 54 instances in 2015 from 83 in 2014, last year saw a slight increase in the number of discriminatory adverts.

Late last year, the commission also flagged posts that had been shared on social media which it described as objectifying and over-sexualising women.

At the time, the NCPE said that it had received “a number” of objections from the public about social media posts depicting women in an over-sexualised manner, which in turn reinforced gender stereotypes.

The equality commission is an independent body whose function is to safeguard equality on the basis of gender, family, responsibilities, religion and belief, age, sexual orientation, race and gender identity.