Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The most significant additional initiative that the Department has undertaken to increase the participation in employment of people with a disability in the period since April 2011 is the Disability Activation Project (DACT) which I launched at the end of 2012.The DACT Project is jointly funded by the European Social Fund and the Department of Social Protection and is providing funding in excess of €7 million to some fourteen different projects in the Borders, Midlands and Western (BMW) region.These projects will run until end-April 2015 and cover four specific strands associated with the employment of people with disabilities: improving access to employment; progression programmes for young people with a disability; support for progression and retention of people with an acquired disability; and innovative employer initiatives. By way of illustration, the projects being supported include:

- a project which is developing individualised occupational therapy programmes to enable people affected by arthritis to overcome the barriers they face in accessing, remaining in or returning to work;

- a project which is developing an interagency response to meet the needs of young people with learning disabilities;

- a project which aims to significantly broaden the number of employers who employ people with disabilities by increasing awareness of the capabilities, skills and competencies to be found among people with disabilities as well as highlighting the supports available to employers in this area.

As well as the immediate positive outcomes which are being generated for those people participating, the outcomes of all of the projects will also provide valuable guidance as to how best to further develop effective activation measures generally for people with disabilities into the future. I should mention also that the Department funds the WAM (Willing Able Mentoring) project, the objective of which is to bring graduates and employers together to promote access to the labour market for graduates with disabilities. The Department is deeply committed to supporting people with disabilities to participate more fully in society and to become more self-sufficient by providing supports that address barriers they may encounter in finding work and at work.