Mr. R?n?n Hession:

I will lead out on the Deputy's question about employers, and my colleague from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment will pick up anything I have missed or anything from that side. Generally speaking, we engage with employers. Our primary customers are obviously those who get income supports, but we have an employer relations unit that works directly with employers. In other words, we run recruitment campaigns, hold interviews in our Intreo offices and go out on the ground to meet them and explain what we do. A big part of that is trying to work with employers to hire disabled people, which we do in a number of ways. We have a number of incentives, such as the wage subsidy scheme. The employer gets €6.30 per hour up to €9.45 per hour. I must apologise, Chair. In the briefing note, we said the higher rate applies when the number is above three staff members. It should say 23 staff members. I will just correct that for the record. That is the higher rate. We also have JobsPlus where, effectively, employers can recruit somebody on disability allowance and get between €10,000 or €15,000 per year. There are significant subsidies, therefore, but there is a very low take-up.

We want to get to a place with employers where we can say that many people in receipt of our payments have the talents and abilities they are looking for. Employers can tell us what they are looking for and we will put the right people in front of them. Some of them may have disabilities and we have many supports to get over any concerns or issues that may raise. We want to make sure it goes beyond this, however. Sometimes, it gets stuck and becomes a small conversation in a small room about a small number of vacancies under corporate social responsibility. That speaks to the Deputy's point about low level or entry level jobs as opposed to career progression and decision-making roles, etc.

As I said, most disabilities are acquired. People have significant work histories and had successful careers before their disabilities. We try to work with employers. There is an openness there, especially at the moment, perhaps, with very low levels of unemployment. Employers are more open for business than perhaps would have been the case previously. We sort of work in a countercyclical way. When they are looking for people, we do not have that many people and when they are not looking for people, we have loads of people. It is, therefore, always that balance when we are working with them. However, we try to maintain the relationships so that we can work with them throughout the cycle.

The Deputy asked about percentages and the disability liaison officers. My understanding of that role, certainly with our Department and I think other Departments are the same, is that it is primarily a contact point for issues. For example, we have customers who require the assistance of access officers. In other words, if a person has a problem with either access to our premises or perhaps our online content or forms, that contact point can navigate the bureaucracy on his or her behalf. They do not so much have a role in terms of pressing employers from a compliance point of view. I am open to correction on this but I understand that the 3% requirement is in the public sector; I am not sure. From a private sector point of view, I do not think that percentage applies. Again, however, I am open to correction, although many do aim for those targets. My colleague, Mr. Maher, might wish to supplement that response.