Mr. Adrian Stewart:

I wish to come back to the Senator’s question on the quota scheme for people with disabilities. Whether we should or should not introduce it in Ireland has been knocked around in discussions over the past 20 years. It is a reality in many countries in Europe. It is a reality in Ireland in the public sector, where we have a 3% quota that will go up to 6% in 2025. It has had some, albeit limited, success.

I was at the launch of a document last week. It was nearly embarrassing to be at it from Ireland because we ranked lowest in the percentage of people unemployed and highest in having the largest gap between employment of people with or without disabilities. We need to have a discussion around the quota scheme and we definitely need to include and involve people with disabilities in that discussion. It is not something that we should look at on a long-term basis but it is certainly something that will take us out of where we are now.

On the other side, we need look at incentivising people with disabilities, and not putting obstacles in the way, so that they go into employment. However, there is much work to be done on the demand side and bringing employers on board. A quota scheme would focus the mind.