Dr. Dermot Coates:

I thank the Deputy. As it falls for this Department, the objective in target 8.5 being promoting decent work and achieving full and productive employment, it has long been recognised that there is a gap in our performance versus other countries when it comes to employment for people with disabilities. Specifically, activation and employment support policy rests with the Department of Social Protection but our Department participates in that work through the labour market advisory committee and that particular issue was made a key deliverable under the Pathways to Work strategy, which was published in 2021, to boost the employment rate. For our own Department, quite a lot of focus has been placed in recent months on understanding the dynamics of why that gap exists. We have done quite a bit of work with the Central Statistics Office, CSO, and we will be forthcoming with this probably in the new year.

Thinking of the cohort of people to whom we should refer as jobseekers with a disability as they are jobseekers, we need to understand what the barriers are for these jobseekers. Using the detailed labour force survey data, we can segment to the extent to be able to say that some people have a certain suite of conditions that they are not going to be able to work but for the people who could and want to work, we can see what needs to be done in that space specifically. When we think about the employment rate for people with a disability, sometimes you hear of a figure of approximately 30% or so, but that is not calculating the employment rate in the way we would for the generality of the population. The key issue for the generality of the population is that about two thirds of people are active in the labour market whether they are employed or unemployed and that ratio is inverted for people with a disability. Approximately two thirds of those persons, unfortunately, are classified as economically inactive and not categorised as employed or unemployed.

Therefore, it is how we focus on the inactive cohort, because to some extent my suspicion would be, and my experience in the past as well, is that people perceive there would not be work out there for them even if they went looking for the work. It is not that they are even in the labour market; it is how to bring them into the labour market first, and then provide all the supports. It is worth stating that if we look at the supports Ireland provides through Intreo, the public employment service, the supports stand up quite well compared with other advanced European economies in providing a wage subsidy and personal readers.

We provide infrastructural grants for employers who need to make structural changes to facilitate people. There is that range of supports there but I suggest take-up is not as high as it should be. It remains a key area of focus for this Department and the Department of Social Protection.

I will make one more point in addition. When we are talking about having a labour market that is running at full capacity, it is always incumbent on us to look at the totality of people who are available to work and provide them with the supports. We should not be overlooking them and looking for people abroad or whatever the case may be but should remain cognisant that there are cohorts of people who may well feel poorly served by the labour market, in good times and bad.