Ms Christabelle Feeney:

I thank the Deputy. I am the director of Employers for Change at the Open Doors Initiative. I am a white female, with shoulder-length blonde hair and today I am wearing a black jumpsuit.

I thank the Deputy for the question and I thank the committee for having us here today. In considering where Ireland is today, I will speak a little more about the obstacles involved before I address what is happening in the UK. The first of the biggest obstacles we see around employment for people with disabilities is the lack of awareness and understanding from employers. I do a lot of work with employers and provide an employer disability information service, which is a free service funded by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. As a part of that, we see that enormous obstacles arise around people's attitudes and lack of understanding. Many concerns around what it takes to be inclusive in respect of disability in an organisation, what it means to be disability inclusive and to employ somebody with a disability are unnecessary and unfounded. That is a real barrier from the employer's side. We must get that education piece out there so people feel empowered and understand, and are not avoiding talking about disability, which can happen. People avoid using the word "disability", as Ms McDonagh mentioned earlier. People see it as a negative word, almost a put-down. There is a real lack of understanding about what disability means. It is, or will be, a natural part of all of our lives at some stage.

From the employee perspective, one of the biggest obstacles in an Irish context is the worry around losing supports, disability allowance and other things like that. The Department of Social Protection carried out a survey in 2017. Almost 50% of respondents cited, in different ways, a fear of losing different supports, including the medical card and disability allowance. There are considerable restrictions around the number of hours that people can work and still access that allowance. Those are all things we need to change.

The idea of putting supports around an individual has worked well in the UK. The idea is that a person does not have to look for supports each time he or she moves employment. Our approach stops people from thriving. Most of us do not stay in the same role throughout our lives. If somebody wants to move, that issue can act as a barrier. A person may have an opportunity to grow in another organisation. Building those supports around an individual and his or her needs has worked very well in the UK.

Other countries that did well in the most recent report had introduced things such as reporting. In the public sector, we have an expectation that reporting will be done on the number of employees with disabilities. In other countries, that has been introduced across the board. I hope we in Ireland could consider that at some point. We have seen interest in the gender pay gap as a result of the mandatory reporting that has come in. We need that kind of quota or a stick, as we like to say sometimes, to get results. There is a great deal of work to be done.

I would also say that from our perspective of working with employers, there is an appetite. Since we launched Employers for Change almost three years ago, I can certainly see a significant increase in the amount of interactions with and engagement from employers. There has been a greater understanding of the value added to organisations by people who have disabilities. We area not coming in here to say this is a legislative obligation, a nice thing to do or the right thing to do. People with disabilities have a lot to add to an organisation. They are talented and innovative people with diverse backgrounds and who can bring different expertise to any organisation they go into.