Ms Deirdre O'Connor:

It comes back to the idea of awareness of reasonable accommodation. People need to have information about how to go about putting reasonable accommodations in place. There has to be good information systems regarding support for employers in accessing the funding that is available and in the practicalities of putting reasonable accommodations in place. There have been several initiatives under the comprehensive employment scheme to put employer information services in place but these have not succeeded. There have been pilots that have not succeeded. One of the other pieces of the comprehensive employment strategy relates to transitions from one stage of life to another such as the transitions from preschool to primary school, from primary school to secondary school and from secondary school into the college or the workplace. Supports need to be targeted there.

There are two things to say about young people with disabilities who are leaving the education system and going into the workplace. The first relates to the expectations of parents, educators and teachers as to what young people can or cannot achieve. A lot of the time it is about what they cannot achieve. It is really important that people have good expectations and expect that people with disabilities generally will go into employment. That is the first part.

The second part is for schools and relates to career guidance and awareness among career guidance counsellors regarding the possibilities and the reasonable accommodations. For example, people with a disability going into a workplace or their parents should be able to articulate the kinds of supports they need and how those supports can reasonably be put in place. What does it mean to say that a particular person has to be reasonably accommodated? That needs to be broken down because many of the accommodations do not cost money and are not disruptive to the workplace. It may involve working with an organisation like Specialisterne Ireland or with job coaches. Another issue across the disability and employment landscape is the difficulty in scaling up operations like Specialisterne Ireland or any of the many other organisations working in this area. I believe Mr. Brabazon referred to a kind of competition between organisations. It is really important that, where there are good supports, they are scaled up so that they can be rolled out across the system.