Mr. John Sherwin:

The 24 hours is a good start. That provision was not there previously. The UK access to work scheme provides an interpreter for the full working life of a deaf individual. When we take the benefits into account holistically and consider that people are not availing of welfare, recognise the generational lifting of people out of the poverty trap and examine the full picture, for every £1 spent on the scheme, the Exchequer receives back £1.40 or thereabouts. My figures might not be exactly right but they mean there is no loss or ultimate expense to the Exchequer. Investing in employment for disabled and deaf people will result in an overall net gain. We know that every €1 spent on the promotion of healthy lifestyles saves multiples of that amount on the other side in terms of treatment. This is exactly the same kind of scenario.

Awareness training is hugely important. We did a joint project with Enterprise Holdings last year. In the spirit of co-creation, but flipped the other way around, we did some deaf awareness training with the employees of the business and some employee awareness training with our deaf candidates in the placements. It was a great mutual learning experience. It came out of a project we are doing that has a guidance basis. We would like to see more career guidance as a focus.

We need to put disabled people in control of their own assistance budgets and allow people to decide how best to use them for the best outcomes. We must stop taking control of that in too much of a granular fashion. We need more control and empowerment for disabled people when using these grants.