Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 7 March 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Autism

Services and Supports Provided by the State for Autistic People: Discussion (Resumed)

Dr. Rosalyn Tamming:

As the Deputy will be aware, there are minimum targets within the public sector but not within the private sector. It is something we have looked at, although not in a lot of depth. I think there would be some resistance to it and I think it would be difficult to bring in. The measuring of how many people have a disability in a workplace is always difficult. We experience that within the public sector because people do not always wish to share their personal information. Even though it might be stated only on a confidential form, people might not feel as confident doing that, depending on the workplace. Much of the work we do with Departments and State agencies relates to making the workplace inclusive in order that people will be more willing to share their diagnosis or whether they have a disability so that they can be recorded as having a disability. As the committee will know, the recent passing of the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) (Amendment) Act has raised the minimum target to 6% by 2025, which is a good thing. More than 30% of Departments and agencies are already at that level, while some of them are still below or around the 3% mark. For the private sector, it would need to be thought about in more detail, perhaps with engagement with the employer bodies and various people such as that, to get a sense of what it would involve and what the pros and cons would be.