Mr. R?n?n Hession:

I thank the Cathaoirleach and the Senator. With regard to the social welfare aspects and the employee retention grant, that is a demand-led scheme. There is no budget cap on that, and it can be drawn down and used. We promote it in our employer relations. We have run national media advertising campaigns to drum up interest. As I said in my opening statement, we have reviewed the reasonable accommodation fund. That is one of the constituent grants under that. We had a very good response from employees, DPOs and employers, and in fact, we extended the consultation process, because we had quite a significant amount of interest. That review is close to finalisation. The scheme is not working. It is not being used, it is clunky, and it is not getting traction out there, so we have had to have a rethink. We got some money in the budget to help us support and broaden the grant, so we hope to be publishing that shortly. Getting the rigidity is a bit of a problem, but I think we will overcome that.

On the means testing, the way it works with regards to the Arts Council grants, is that the grants and bursaries are typically for a piece of work or a project. In other words, they are analogous to employment earnings, and so what we do is spread it over the period. It is not that if someone gets a €2,000 grant and then we say, well they will lose their disability allowance, DA. We will spread it over the period of the work. In most cases, that means that the disregard can wipe out a significant portion, or at least a reasonable allowed portion of the income, and not affect the payment. It is a feature of means-testing systems, that if somebody does get employment, I think we do have to factor it in.

I know the Senator directed a question to my colleague around self-employment. A lot of our supports to the self-employed, so a lot of the reasonable accommodation grants are available to the self-employed. The back to work enterprise allowance is available for self-employed disabled people as well.