Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing me to raise this important topic. The group of workers who are directly affected are some 2,600 workers throughout the country who suffer from a mild physical or mental disability and who, due to a Government initiative, have been allowed to join the workforce. The reason they have been able to participate in the workforce is because the Government supports the employer through the payment of their wages. This is known as the wage subsidy scheme, WSS, as opposed to the temporary wage subsidy scheme, TWSS, with which we are all familiar since the advent of the pandemic.

All of those people are working for the minimum wage. When the scheme was introduced, the rate of payment was about €5.30 per hour and, at the time it was introduced, the payment represented about 70% of the minimum wage. Because the minimum wage has increased progressively over the years, this payment has remained frozen and, as a result, it now represents only 50%.

Although I am talking about 2,600 people, my main focus has to be the group who have been employed up to now by a company called Rehab Logistics in the Raheen industrial estate in Limerick city. The company is in the process of making 37 people redundant and 30 of them are beneficiaries of the wage subsidy scheme. I have had detailed conversations with representatives of Rehab Logistics and they have informed me that because the WSS did not rise in tandem with the minimum wage increases, the operation in Raheen has racked up fairly large losses.

However, the group might be amenable to keeping those people on in their jobs if that situation were rectified.

A number of issues must be taken into account here. First, we have the worst record in the civilised world for employing people with mental or physical disabilities in the main labour force. Second, the EU public procurement directive of 2014, which allows countries to siphon off part of public contracts specifically to employ disabled people, has never been used in this country. Most public bodies, including my own county council in Limerick, do not even know of its existence. Third, for the people I am representing here tonight, their job is their life. Many of them have aged and infirm parents. I have heard heart-rending pleas from those parents not to take away the lives of their offspring. Despite their disability or handicap, these people feel immensely proud and privileged to be part of the workforce. We must also take into account the fact that there is a very specific and clear commitment in the programme for Government not only to improve the opportunities for people with a disability to become part of the workforce but also to retain those who have managed to achieve that status. The supreme irony here is that if they cease to be part of the workforce they will be entitled to receive social welfare in the form of the disability allowance, which according to my calculations will cost the State more. In that situation, the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth will also have to intervene to help them in various ways and that will add further costs for the taxpayer. It will cost the taxpayer more to put these people on the scrapheap than to keep them in gainful employment. That is reprehensible.

If the Minister, for some reason, is not disposed to increase the rates from €5.30 per hour under the WSS, I suggest the Government should look carefully at the potential for a disability CE scheme here. I understand there is spare capacity in that area. Perhaps these people could be accommodated in that way so they can continue to live their lives.

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