Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will now respond to Deputy O'Dea's questions. The vast majority of our schemes are demand-led. I do not know who would have said to the Deputy anecdotally that we have run out of money. Funds for emergency needs payments and exceptional needs payments never run out. It is easy for me to say that because it is not my money that we are spending. These payments exist to help people at times when they cannot help themselves and have nobody else to go to. We never say "No". The policy is what it is. It has changed slightly in recent years arising from conversations that we would have had in this committee but, we never run out of money and we do not refuse.

The Deputy asked why only €2 million is provided for the self-employed. It looks like a miserly amount of money but the legislation will not go to Cabinet until next week or the week after. It will then have to be processed through the Houses. All of that can take time. Notwithstanding any difficulties, I expect that the legislation will be passed by the autumn and that we can go live in October or November. When the amount provided is grossed up it amounts to €35 million for next year. I hope it does not look like that because we are not expecting people to be out of work. It is only a support payment.

I will come back to the Deputy with the activation schemes data. There is a long list of schemes, which we have here and the Deputy can have a look it following the meeting, if he wishes. I can also have a hard copy of it sent to him.

On the carer's support grant, 116,860 people are in receipt of the grant. There are 80,989 in receipt of carer's allowance and 2,740 people in receipt of carer's benefit. A number of those in receipt of an incapacitated tax credit would not qualify for either carer's allowance or carer's benefit but are in receipt of the carer's support grant. The incapacitated tax credits relate to children and older members of the family and the grant makes up the difference.

In terms of the supports that we provide for people with disabilities, members may be aware that the Department launched an ability programme last year. We got money from the European Union which we then matched. The aim of the programme is to tailor employment opportunities and in-employment supports for young adults with disabilities. The scheme was over-subscribed threefold in terms of the number of organisations that wanted to run programmes. Some of them started last year and I do not need to tell members that these are absolutely wonderful organisations, which are providing very valuable supports to people. I was out in Airfield a couple of months ago with the WALK organisation. There were some fabulous young people there who are ten foot tall with their jobs, support mechanisms and their mentors. Members may be aware that all Departments and Government agencies are obliged to increase the percentage of people with disabilities in their employ from 3% to 4%. When I visited Airfield I spoke to a man who has a son in his 20s. He is far more intelligent than I would ever aspire to be but his father told me that he finds the application process for public jobs exceptionally difficult. I discovered that the application process for all public jobs is exactly the same for people with disabilities, intellectual or physical, as for people with no disability. That does not sit well with me. He joked with me that day and said that he felt that some of the questions were trick questions so that he would answer the same question differently twice and we would be able to catch him out and then not give him the job. Apparently, we do such profile testing but it is very disconcerting for people who might read into things more. That is an issue that should be addressed by the Public Appointments Service, PAS. We expect more people to join the ability programme. It is a three-year programme and I would like to see it continue and expand.

We also have the employability programme that works with people who may not have a disability but who have mental health issues. We are talking about all ends of the scale, from those with mild mental health issues to those with very severe problems. That programme operates in every single HSE centre in the country and is very successful. We can never be exhaustive in terms of what we are doing in this area but we have introduced a couple of new interventions in recent years, particularly for people with extra challenges in their lives.

I do not have the figure to hand on HAP. Sorry, I am wrong - I do have the figures. There are three schemes, namely, RAS, HAP and rent supplement. There are 18,900 people on RAS, 22,600 on rent supplement and 45,700 people on HAP, giving a total of 87,200 private rental tenancy supports. This represents 26% of the private rental market.