Ms Christabelle Feeney:

As things stand, all the applications for supports are on paper, so someone cannot actually apply online, even if a person wanted to right now. Some of them have four different forms, which is excessive. To get the disability awareness grant scheme, organisations are asked if there is an employee with a disability. Our thinking around it is very important.

If we were to think about a scheme that works well in this country, where the uptake is very high, surely we would come back to the Covid-19 supports that were put in place and how easy that was made in terms of the online application. People just had to go onto the social welfare app and apply for it. If that is what we are talking about, we should not be using this as an opportunity to say: "Well, there has been very little uptake, so actually that is a success." No uptake is not success. In 2021, there was zero uptake, based on the figures I received for the employee retention grant. Are we really saying that no employee in this country acquired a disability in 2021? Absolutely not. We have to move it to an individual basis where a person can go onto thewelfare.ieapp and apply for an individual support, which is assigned to them and they receive it once they are in employment, irrespective of where they are employed.