Dr. Joan McCarthy:

To build on what my colleagues have said, quotas were always the poisoned chalice. We want them because we want to give people good opportunities to find employment, but they are definitely not high enough. We were not ambitious enough when we put them in place, even within the public sector.

The other problem in that we do not track and often people go in at entry level and get stuck there. There are some basic issues with courses which we need to address before we even begin to look at broadening this and making it the responsibility of the private sector. We need to figure out where it is currently at and then use that information to go further. The private sector does have a role to play around employment and supporting people with disabilities into employment. This is about the incentives and supports that we put in place to enable employers in the private sector to feel confident and comfortable around employing people with disabilities. We need to learn from the courses in place and why they are not working.

On which Department is best placed to work alongside the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection, the Disability Federation of Ireland, DFI, would like that to be the Department of the Taoiseach. We feel it is our time. The existing national disability strategy is 12 years old and it was hammered throughout the recession and is way behind where it should be. We believe the Department of the Taoiseach now needs to row in behind this strategy. In terms of a systemic approach, only the Taoiseach's office can demand that Departments work together. The view within the disabilities sector is that the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection should be the lead Department because it is about the lived experience and day-to-day issues such as income, employment and so on but that no one Department can resolve disability issues. In transferring responsibility from the Department of Health to the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection we might be repeating the same experiences we have had to date in terms of the latter being able to answer everything. If that is the case, that is not the answer. What we need is an implementation plan led by two or three Departments. The initiative taken by another committee - whereby the Departments of Health, Employment Affairs and Social Protection and Education and Skills have come together, in terms of dealing with a person's health to see what he or she requires in terms of personal social services or to enable him or her to go on to further education and then on to employment, and in terms of income - is interesting. We all know the additional costs associated with having a disability. This type of interface between Departments would enable people to be equal and active.