Mr. Donal Leahy:

I thank the Deputy for the question. I will address a couple of points. Luckily we revamped our website in the past year so it now meets the compatibility requirements.

Whether I would have had the same answer for the Deputy a year ago is another question, so the timing was good there.

Addressing the point about how we consult with disabled people and their representative organisations, there are several routes for that. As well as following the rules, our partnership with the Open Doors Initiative gives us a huge amount of information and advice and enables us to see what we do not see. That helps us enormously. An important part of that is the Employers for Change programme and the advice that gives us. Another aspect of it is the fact that we are gathering data using the organisation Inclusio. At the end of 2023, we carried out a very extensive equality, diversity and inclusion survey. At the moment, we are cleaning up the data gathered so a report has not yet been produced. While that exercise will not solve any problems, as such, it will give us a baseline indication of where we are at. We are going to use that data so that as well as the human side of things, we will have metrics to see how well we are doing or not doing. Another aspect of getting advice and being informed by the end users is Enterprise Ireland's membership of a new stakeholder and client working group that will develop an approach for reasonable accommodations. That initiative is being led by the Public Appointments Service and by being part of that process, Enterprise Ireland is being informed by people with disabilities. The intention of the project is to transform the approach to reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities. The plan is that there will be a pilot programme in 2024 arising from that working group. That is how we get advice from stakeholders.

In terms of supports for entrepreneurs, the UN convention only mentions entrepreneurs once or twice but they are mentioned. We are working on a campaign to enhance the visibility of entrepreneurs with disabilities. A number of prominent, successful entrepreneurs, who do not need much encouragement, are involved. Committee members will probably be aware of them. A number of them are clients of Enterprise Ireland and LEOs. We will conduct a campaign with them so that people will see it and know that they can be it, so to speak.