Ms Geraldine Hurley:

I thank the Deputy. I will deal with her query on employment supports and what is being done at the moment.

I will point out the Government employment services strategy, Pathways to Work. It has a particular strand in relation to leaving no-one behind, which is extending and looking at supports to persons facing particular difficulties in the labour market, and who are facing the barriers and require supports that were referred to at a more general level. Obviously, that includes persons with disabilities there.

The early engagement initiative was one of the key commitments there which we commenced in July of this year. We started working with young people who were in receipt of disability allowance. We wrote to around 6,000 people with a letter that was developed in consultation with a number of community and voluntary organisations, which were working with persons with disability. It was a specially designed letter in that way, stating that we would be in contact with them in a follow-up phone call to see what kind of employment supports Intreo could offer them at this particular point in time. Generally, the feedback was positive. Some, obviously, were not interested at that point in time because they were in education. At least it brought to their attention that the services are available to them when they would need them, maybe when they are finished their college or whatever. Of the 6,000 that we wrote out to, we made phone calls to 5,800. Approximately, 3,300 answered the call. That has led to a number of people being referred to other services, be it EmployAbility or some of the schemes we have mentioned, or engaging with our Intreo services.

Just under 1,000 people are currently engaging with our services. That is an example of where we proactively went out to see what supports are available to persons on disability allowances at a young age to let them know we are available to help them find employment, support them in that and get information on the schemes that are available to them. Those are the specific schemes that are in place to support a person with a disability but also the general schemes. We keep an eye on the takeup of those schemes by persons who may be on jobseeker's allowance but who self-declare as having a particular barrier in entering the workforce arising from a disability. We are going to extend that initiative to look at the next age group from March onwards. We are obviously looking to improve and refine that as we progress with it over the next while. We will look at the outcomes and results in that regard and get feedback from the groups to see what we are doing and what we can do better.

We then, of course, have a number of specific schemes that are in place to support people who either come to us on a voluntary basis and who are in receipt of disability allowance or who are on jobseeker's allowance and self-declare as having some form of disability that creates additional barriers or challenges to them finding employment or accessing training.

The employability contracted services is one such scheme we have. There are more than 3,000 people on that caseload at the moment. That provides tailored employment support advice for persons with disabilities, including periods when they were in employment. A high proportion of people who are on that scheme are getting the in-work supports, which is important.

We mentioned previously the wage subsidy scheme, WSS, which is available to employers who recruit people who have a disability. There are approximately 1,500 participants on that programme, which has an annual budget of €23 million. We then have people who are in our normal job application caseloads who have self-identified either that they have a disability or are in receipt of disability allowance. They obviously have the specific rules around people for accessing the various schemes such as community employment, CE. Anybody in receipt of disability allowance does not have the normal waiting period and they can go on to CE. We have extended the eligibility for JobsPlus, which is another employment recruitment incentive for employers to persons on disability allowance. Equally, Tús, which is also an employment support scheme, has been extended to persons on disability allowance.

The main point I am making is that there are a range of specific supports for persons with a disability, as well as making sure they have access to the general supports that are there in terms of the services we provide, the general employment services or the schemes we have available to us.