Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Senator O’Loughlin and others mentioned employment. We are a laggard in relation to Europe in the number of people who are employed. Dr. Hartney talked about different surveys that have been carried out around people declaring a disability. In my previous job, there was a confidential survey and one declared whether one had a disability. However, many people who had disabilities, some physical, but especially those with mental health conditions, were very reluctant to admit to that because they felt they were going to be stigmatised. Therefore, we probably do not have accurate figures reflecting the numbers.

In addition, I visited EmployAbility recently in my area. It does such important work in helping disabled people, autistic people and people with mental health conditions either get into or back into the workforce. They said they are still coming across an attitude with employers where they do not want to employ people with disability. I do not know how we overcome that. There has to be much more awareness and more accommodations. Even in employing autistic people, they have a misconception about autism. While the awareness is improving, much more needs to be done. How do we reach out? Is there some way? I know setting targets or even certain quotas was mentioned. It is done in the public sector but it would be much more difficult in the private sector. Is there anything that can be done to improve this?