Dr. Aideen Hartney:

On the employability side of things, employability programmes offer a valuable service in local areas. The Senator is right that there are limits to what they can achieve. That is where we would be advising the need for a national programme of supported employment where it can add on to the services offered either through Intreo or EmployAbility. Ideally, most services for disabled people would be offered through the mainstream provision. We have advised, and the Department of Social Protection are progressing some work in terms of upskilling Intreo staff to be able to address the needs of some disabled clients. EmployAbility would do another piece of that jigsaw. However, there is a cohort of people who are underserved. Those are people with higher support needs but who would be in a position to work a few hours per week with the support of a job coach. Job carving is another thread. In other European countries that is a complementary service. It is either embedded within the public employment service or closely aligned to it for smooth pathways of referral. That is something that we would very much like to see rolled out in an Irish context. There was an agreed policy between all of the relevant Departments back in 2018 but there were challenges in moving to a demonstration stage. That is something that could be usefully picked up during the lifetime of the forthcoming strategy.

In relation to the quality of life and distance from services, there is a lot to unpick in those scenarios. Another area to highlight for the benefit of this committee is the importance of accessible public transport, so even where people might be at some distance from the services or places of employment or education that they wish to avail of, that transport is not serving as a barrier. There is a commitment within the forthcoming strategy to improve matters there. It is something that needs ongoing focus.