Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I also welcome International Women’s Day. I was laughing to myself when I heard Senator Davitt talking about how he is a house of women and is reminded how lucky he was. I was reared in a house of all boys. You only need one woman to remind you how lucky you are. My mother did that for many years. Now I am in a house with my wife and two boys and we are reminded once again how lucky we are to have that woman.

I ask that we have a debate with the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Coveney. We have not had one since his appointment to that Department. I want a debate on employment. We are quite lucky at the moment. We almost have 2.6 million people working in Ireland. That is the highest it has ever been. But there is one area where we are lagging, namely, employment for people with disabilities where we have the lowest percentage of employment for people with disabilities. One thing we could do is around government contracts. A European regulation permits government contracting authorities to reserve part of a contract to a company where more than 30% of its staff have disabilities. Across the EU, this regulation is widely used for charities such as Rehab to create sustainable and secure employment for people with disabilities. In Scotland, a sister company of Rehab, Haven Products, has secured multiple government contracts from document storage to destruction to PPE uniform production. It is an area which Ireland has not maximised.

Only 32% of those with disabilities are working in Ireland. In France, the rate is over 50% and the UK is almost at 50%. We are much lower than every other country in the EU. That needs to be rectified, especially when there are so many jobs available at the moment.