Bernard Allen (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)
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Question 20: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the range of options identified by his Department to assist people with disabilities who are in receipt of social welfare payments to take up employment; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4640/06]

Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)
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My Department operates a number of schemes which provide income support to persons with an illness or disability, including the social insurance disability benefit and invalidity pension schemes, the means-tested disability allowance and blind pension. In addition, there is a further range of benefits available under the occupational injury benefits scheme for people who have been injured or disabled as a result of an accident at work.

Facilitating return to work and participation in the active labour force with a view to assisting people to become more financially independent is a most important objective of the social welfare system and a key goal in my Department's statement of strategy. There are a number of specific incentives available within the system to encourage and facilitate people, including people with illness or disabilities, to take-up or return to employment, or to undertake education and training options.

These incentives include exemptions from the general "no work" conditions of the disability benefit and invalidity pension schemes to facilitate people to undertake work of a rehabilitative nature and there are over 6,500 people currently availing of such exemptions. In addition, there are income disregards which exempt a portion of earnings — currently €120 per week — from the means-tested disability allowance and blind pension payments and 6,000 people are currently availing of this disregard.

In order to improve the incentives for people with disabilities to take up and progress within employment, as part of the social welfare budget package 2006, a new 50% withdrawal rate of disability allowance and blind pension payments will be effective from June 2006 for earnings above €120 per week and under €350 per week. This measure replaces the current euro for euro withdrawal above the €120 per week disregard and will mean that a single person can earn up to €390 per week before his or her disability allowance or blind pension is fully withdrawn.

Access to the back to work allowance scheme, designed to assist people to return to employment, is also available — subject to certain conditions — to people in receipt of disability benefit, invalidity pension, disability allowance, blind pension and unemployability supplement. This is a weekly payment which allows people to take up approved employment while retaining a percentage of their social welfare payment for three years — four years in the case of self-employment — and to retain any secondary benefits to which they have been entitled for that period. There are approximately 1,300 people availing of the back to work allowance who have been in receipt of illness or disability payments.

Access to the back to education scheme — subject to qualifying conditions — is similarly available for people in receipt of the aforementioned schemes. This is an allowance paid at a standard rate for the duration of the educational course which the person undertakes at either second or third level. Any secondary benefits to which the person had entitlement are also retained for the duration of the payment. In addition, an annual cost of education allowance is payable at the commencement of each academic year to assist with the purchase of books and other relevant materials. There are 350 people participating in the back to education scheme who had been receiving disability or illness payments.

As part of the Government's expenditure review initiative, a working group established by my Department has reviewed the illness and disability schemes and identified a number of areas where employment support could be further strengthened within the system and across Departments. These include: recognition of the fact that some people's medical and other circumstances may mean that they have some capacity for work, but may never achieve full-time work; ensuring that employment support measures do not act as a disincentive for people with disabilities and long-term illnesses in maximising their employment and earnings potential; retaining a range of employment supports for different groups and ensuring clients are referred to the most suitable option, having regard to the nature of their illness-disability, age, social circumstances etc.; and the introduction of early intervention measures aimed at re-integrating people who sustain serious illnesses, injuries and disabilities back into the workforce before they become long-term dependent on social welfare payments.

The implementation of the various recommendations of the report is being progressed in the context of developments generally for people with disabilities. The review also stresses the importance of meeting the additional costs of disability in ways that are less dependent on labour force status, if people with disabilities are to be given the opportunity to participate in the workforce. My Department is represented on the interdepartmental working group, chaired by the Department of Health and Children, which is examining this issue.