Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

On the wage subsidy for people with a disability, in 2014, 1308 people received this to June 2014. In total in 2013, 1100 people received the subsidy and in 2012, 1000 received it. In 2011, 916 received it, and in 2010, 833 people received it.

There are now 812 employers, to the end of June, involved in the scheme. The situation is improving but nowhere near the rate of improvement that I, personally, would like to see.

We also have the disability activation programme in the BMW region which has been under way for the past two years. I secured funding from the European Union for a pilot programme relating to people with a disability. The programme particularly involves very interesting work among organisations working with young adults with a disability. It has been an enormous help in generating public support in towns and areas and among local employers. The work ranges from retail to hospitality and other services. If it is difficult for an unemployed person who is fully able bodied to find work then it is even more difficult for somebody with a disability.

As people will know, in the education system we are now mainstreaming young people with a disability right up to leaving certificate level which I think is a great achievement for this country. A small number of young people proceed to further education and third level and when they emerge they have another step to go to secure employment. The numbers are increasing but I would like to see them increase much more.

We took over the employability services and we have done a lot of additional work. I want to take the opportunity to say that we coach and mentor the person with a disability and we do the same work with the employer and the employer's human resources department. One of the difficulties can be a lack of appreciation of the needs of the person with the disability and a lack of knowledge on the part of both the would-be employee and would-be employer of what precisely the needs are. We have small capital grants as well as the wage subsidy. The current budget for this year is €10.85 million and to date, that is to the end of June, we have spent over €6 million.

I have spoken here before about the European Youth Guarantee. Our funding proposals are with the European Union. We have engaged very extensively with the European Union on the youth employment initiative which is the vehicle the European Union uses specifically for people under 25 years of age. Within the Department this is being used to part fund some of the activities within the Youth Guarantee.

The Department proposes to claim €41.4 million European Social Fund and €35 million from the youth employment initiative over the period 2014-20, under the relevant operational programmes. These claims will be submitted under arrangements with the Department of Education and Skills which is the certifying authority for these programmes for the EU in Ireland.

Let me outline the schemes which will be covered and the range of almost all of our activation schemes such as Tús, JobBridge, JobsPlus and the back to work enterprise allowance. Expenditure relating to clients on these schemes, who are under 25 years of age, will be claimed for both the ESF and the youth employment initiative. That means for every €300 of eligible expenditure, €100 of ESF and €100 of the youth employment initiative will be refunded by the European Commission.

Obviously the administration and paperwork required for European funding is extremely challenging. We have got most of ours done and completed but all of the countries have to go through the same process. We are early movers on the whole thing. We also got the OECD to look at what we were doing and there has been significant support. A very successful pilot has been under way for some period in Ballymun.

In terms of our contact with employers and the Labour Market Council, we have had numbers of employers, such as Diageo, specifically working with ourselves and local educational institutions to provide FETAC level training in retail and hospitality. There are also a number of the supermarkets on the retail side and they are taking on young people who are under 22 years for the main part, and subsequently employing quite a lot of them.