John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Before I hand back to the witnesses to answer a range of question, one of the points that was raised, and perhaps Dr. Murphy might be best placed to address it, is the psychological well-being of an individual who is long-term unemployed. Will she expand on that? Is the psychological wellbeing of a person who is long-term unemployed at such a low ebb that it is debilitating and prohibiting and preventing people getting back into the workforce?

I was taken by the point made by Ms Joan O'Donnell that the odds of employment exit are twice as high for people with disabilities as they are for others. She then went on to pick out a couple of particular disabilities, for example deafness, where the odds of employment exit are even higher.

I was in business long before I was in politics and we used to have a rule of thumb in our business and it probably varies from business to business that the cost of getting a new customer was seven times higher than the cost of retaining an existing customer. It would seem to me that when there are statistics that are so out of kilter with the norm that there should be specific programmes targeted at this retention issue. Will she explain what they might look like? Senator Dolan also touched on this point when he referred to the number of people with disabilities who had worked. What do we need to do to ensure their retention at work?

Another issue for disabled people is the possible loss of the medical card. It was stated that people had concerns about taking on employment because they would lose the medical card. Does one lose it immediately, or is there a transition period? Ms O'Donnell stated that she was anticipating an announcement from the Department of Health. Will she expand a little more on that?

I suggest we take the questions in the order the opening statements were made. The witnesses can address the elements which are particular to them.