Mr. Guillaume Jacquinot:

This time it was really good. Thank you. I thank the committee for having me here today. My name is Guillaume Jacquinot, and I am here today speaking on behalf of The Wheel, Ireland's national association of community and voluntary organisations, charities and social enterprises. We have more than 2,600 member organisations, including key stakeholders advocating for disability rights and providing employment support services, such as the Disability Federation of Ireland, Inclusion Ireland, AsIAm, Rehab, the Irish Wheelchair Association and Horizons Cork, among many others. I have worked in the disability sector for over ten years, both here in Ireland and abroad. I hope I can bring this experience to this discussion.

Today's topic is advancing in work for persons with disabilities but, to be honest, this concern feels far away from the reality in a country where so many disabled people struggle to find a job in the first place. As has been mentioned, Ireland has one of the lowest rates of employment for disabled people in the EU at 32.6%, nearly 20% below the EU average of 51.3%. This rate tends to be much lower when it comes to people with intellectual disabilities, psychosocial disabilities and high-support needs. There are still significant barriers to disabled people accessing work in Ireland and many of them were highlighted in the committee's meeting last week. I believe that very similar barriers apply to advancing in work, so I will speak about few of them in my limited time, but I would be happy to expand on others that have been mentioned, such as the cost of disability, in-work poverty and the social benefit trap.

First, the culture needs to change. It needs to change at school, where expectations are low for so many disabled children who do not have access to career guidance because they are not expected to get a job after they leave school. Today's schoolchildren will be tomorrow's workers. We have to remember that. It needs to change in the workplace, where disability is too often misunderstood, feared or made invisible. It leads, for example, to situations where people do not declare their disability or ask for the support they need. It leads to situations where people, after acquiring a disability, do not get adequate reasonable accommodation and therefore have to stop working.

The culture of how our administration works needs to change.

Some processes remain profoundly rooted in the medical model and are sometimes ableist. The Green Paper was a good demonstration of this. However, it is good to note some positive steps, with the review of the wage subsidy schemes and the removal of certain terms like "productivity deficits", for example. The culture needs to change with employers, HR professionals, trade unions, support networks, families and many other groups. We need to have the same ambitions, expectations and respect for everyone regarding accessing work, advancing in work and retaining employment.

Ambition and expectation need to be met with adequate supports for disabled workers and services supporting them. The Irish State has long relied on the community and voluntary sector to respond to crises and fill gaps in public services infrastructure, particularly in the area of disabilities, where approximately two thirds of disability services are provided by the community and voluntary sector. Its work spans advocacy, employment supports and home care, among many other things. However, the lack of adequate funding or full cost recovery for services, as we call it, as well as clear, multi-annual funding among other issues, endangers the sustainability of the sector and the key services it provides. In a recent survey carried out by The Wheel, almost half of the respondents said that with the current level of funding they get, they were unsure they would still be able to provide the same level of services. Approximately a third of respondents told us they were unable to sufficiently recruit and retain staff and volunteers. This impedes the capacity of these services to support jobseekers, employees, employers, initiatives such as WorkAbility, inclusive university courses and the Oireachtas’ own projects. The Oireachtas work learning, OWL, programme made a significant difference for some individuals, but they still represent only a small fraction of disabled people. More of these initiatives are needed all across Ireland.

Finally, these changes in culture will only be made possible if we have ambitious plans and policies to ensure access to work for more disabled people. More disabled people in the labour market, together with adequate support for all employees in the workplace, will lead toward more visibility, consideration and respect, and therefore will provide more opportunities towards career progression and retention. I thank the committee members for their attention.