Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Howlin for raising the fact that today is the International Day of Persons with Disabilities. It is appropriate that we discuss this. As Deputy Howlin points out, many people with disabilities would like to work if they can be assisted and facilitated to do so. There are, however, many barriers to doing so, and our job as a Government and a Legislature is to remove some of those barriers. Examples of what we are doing include situations such as where a person might be receiving disability allowance and then takes up employment. People in that situation can now keep their free travel for at least five years, and that kicked in last year. We have also changed the medical card limits in respect of the disability allowance. Many people on disability payments fear losing their medical card if they go to work, so we have changed the rules in that area.

We have also changed the disability allowance rules to provide that if a disabled person takes up work and it does not work out, and sometimes it does not, he or she can get the disability allowance payment restarted quickly. There is also a grant for employers to make adaptions to the workplace to facilitate people with disabilities, particularly physical disabilities. Sadly, that grant is undersubscribed every year. It is paid for by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection. We would like to see it availed of more. We have set a target of increasing the number of people with disabilities working in the public service from 3% to 6%. Those are the kinds of thing we are taking action on. I thank the Deputy for drawing the attention of the House to the fact that today is International Day of Persons with Disabilities.

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