Mr. Guillaume Jacquinot:

Maybe Ireland could jump in on some of the things from other countries that I find are good. In France, the country I come from, there is the prestation de compensation du handicap, something to compensate the cost of disability, mainly to get equipment and other things, on top of the allocation aux adultes handicapés, which is the equivalent of the disability allowance. There are similar things in Scotland and England. They are a couple of countries where the compensation is looked after in a specific scheme.

With regard to some of the good things I have seen, Spain is extremely good when it comes to hiring people with higher support needs. It has statutory obligations for public services to hire at least 10% of disabled people, including specific quotas for people with intellectual disabilities who face additional challenges. That is the good thing. As a matter of comparison, in Ireland it has been increased from 4.5% to 6% with the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015, but when you look at numbers in 2023, a total of 110 bodies, or 52%, reported that they already reached the minimum threshold of 6%. That is one thing.

As we are talking about advancing work, it is worth noting that there is no tracking of the levels in which disabled people are working in public services. Often, one of the issues is that disabled people are working in low-level jobs where there is a lack of career advancement and progression. It would be good to have trackers that track the quality of the jobs as well.