Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 49: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the progress made to tackle high rates of unemployment among disabled workers since training and employment services for persons with disabilities were restructured in June 2000. [6138/05]

Tony Killeen (Clare, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Broad employment and training objectives and polices to promote the employment of disabled people, including schemes, programmes and services, are reflected in the statements of strategy and business plans of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and FÁS. FÁS programmes and the various support measures are based on the policies of the Department, which are developed through a three dimensional approach involving the following: facilitating the progression of disabled people into sustainable employment through the development of their skills; stimulating awareness amongst employers of the contribution which disabled people can make to their business and encouraging companies to actively consider recruiting disabled people to fill their vacancies; and providing specific employment supports for disabled people and employers.

People with disabilities benefit from the full range of FÁS training programmes and services and FÁS also provides an extensive range of schemes and grants to promote the employment of people with disabilities in the private sector including the disability awareness training support scheme, employee retention grant, work and equipment adaptation grant, job interview interpreter grant, personal reader grant and employment support scheme.

In addition, FÁS also operates the following programmes on behalf of the Department: pilot programme for employment of people with disabilities, PEP — providing grant assistance for commercially viable enterprises of which at least 50% of the employees are people with disabilities and a supported employment programme — an open labour market initiative that works towards the placement of and support of people with different types and varying degrees of disability who need the initial support of a job coach to obtain or maintain employment. The numbers of disabled people, in the case of those with a self declared disability, who registered with FÁS between 2002 and 2004 were as follows:

The numbers of disabled people placed by FÁS into employment, training and other options over the period were :

These placement numbers refer to persons in receipt of disability allowance or disability benefit, and include disabled persons having completed FÁS employment programmes.

I was recently pleased to announce that €5 million is being provided to FÁS in 2005 to launch a new employment support scheme for people with disabilities. This funding will allow the introduction of a new full-time support scheme on a three-year pilot basis, aimed at increasing the numbers of disabled people in full-time employment in the open labour market. My Department's objective in the period ahead is to consolidate the significant value added in advancing the employment and training agenda since assuming policy responsibility for vocational training and employment for people with disabilities.