Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Thank you, Acting Chair, for extending a welcome to the students from Lacken Cross. Some of the issues raised by Senator McGreehan were discussed by them some weeks ago.

I am responding to this matter on behalf of the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Humphreys. I thank the Senator not only for raising the issue but for doing so with such passion.

As the Senator is aware, the Department of Social Protection provides a wide range of disability income supports that are designed to support people with disabilities who wish to enter or return to self-employment. Disability allowance and the blind pension assist people to enter self-employment through the income disregard. The partial capacity benefit allows people on a disability social insurance payment to take up employment or self-employment.These incentives allow people to earn and retain most or some of their social welfare benefits and secondary payments.

The reasonable accommodation fund is comprised of four grants. The four grants are the workplace equipment adaptation grant, the employee retention grant, the job interview interpreter grant and the personal reader grant. I could give the Senator the full answer but I will not waste her time because I want to focus on the employee retention grant scheme. I noted her comments about there being no drawdown in respect of that grant scheme, which is designed to assist employers to retain employees who acquire a disability. It is available to any employer, including the self-employed, with employees. The grant is designed to provide funding to identify accommodation and-or training needs to enable employees to remain within the company. On foot of the Senator's intervention, I intend to ask officials in my Department to ascertain from the Department of Social Protection why there has been no drawdown and what we can do as a Department with direct interaction with employers to promote the drawdown of the employee retention grant scheme.

As the Senator knows, the Department of Social Protection is currently finalising a review of the reasonable accommodation fund, which will be published in the coming months. The review is to see how to improve the effectiveness of the grant and to identify gaps in provision, as outlined by the Senator. It also aims to improve the application and payment processes. The review will be informed by an extensive public consultation, which took place last year. I encourage her to engage directly with the Minister and the Department on that review.

In budget 2023, an additional €1 million in funding was announced to expand the provisions made under the reasonable accommodation fund grant and to support the recommendations from the forthcoming review. I assure the Senator that the question of how to improve take-up and provide adequate support to self-employed disabled people is part of that review. Certainly, from the perspective of my Department, we will work with her to ensure there is greater awareness of the supports and a greater take-up of them.