Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

My Department does not have an overarching role with regard to the Disability Act. My Department is one of the Departments which tries to implement aspects of the Act — every Department has been given responsibilities under the Act. My Department was not one of the sectoral areas. The Minister of State at the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy Fahey, works on this issue with the Department of Health and Children, the Department of Education and Science and a number of other Departments.

The monitoring committee in my Department is made up of the key people in the Department, including the heads of the IT unit, the personnel office and employment assistance officers, and an access officer. They have responsibilities under the Act and have been given dates for implementation of the various sections of the Act, a number of which have already been put in place.

We established a committee at the end of last year as part of the partnership process. It reports to the departmental partnership committee and will approve a report on compliance under the Act by each June, by which time the monitoring committee of each Department must report. It also reports to me and the Cabinet committee on social inclusion on compliance with the Act. There are a number of checks and balances to ensure the Act is complied with. The agencies under my responsibility are also involved.

The level of employment of people with disabilities in my Department is 3.64%. We make regular returns to the equality division of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform on the 3% target, which happens a number of times per year. We continue to review progress of the target and introduce positive action measures as necessary to try to increase that figure. Under the new Act, the monitoring committee must establish a reporting system to monitor our actions and information on the 3% target and what we are doing to try to achieve and improve on it.

The Central Statistics Office has a figure of 4.39% of staff with disabilities, the State Solicitor's office is at 3.36%, the Law Reform Commission figure is at 4.45% and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Office of the Attorney General's figures are at 2.3% and 2.59%, respectively, mainly because most of their staff is composed of barristers and solicitors and these figures are based on the proportion of people with disabilities in those professions. The National Economic and Social Development Office, NESDO, which is a small agency, has no such persons at the moment. It is a small area but NESDO is committed to the figure.

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