Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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247. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the number of persons supported into sustainable jobs by the employability service and its precursor the supported employment programme each year for the past five years. [15361/15]

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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266. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the total funding committed by her Department to the individual placement and support model being piloted by Mental Health Reform; the timeframe for same; her views on what this funding covers; what is covered by others; and the total capacity of the pilot in terms of the numbers of persons with mental health difficulties that it expects to support; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [15456/15]

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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267. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the estimated cost of removing the 18-month time-limit on support from the employability service; her views on the matter including the average length of time that persons remain engaged with the service; and the number and percentage who remain engaged for the full 18 months. [15457/15]

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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268. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the estimated cost of expanding the capacity of the employability service to support 1,000 additional persons; if she will provide a breakdown of the spending this would involve, for example, job coaches, administration and so on. [15458/15]

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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269. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the average number of persons with a mental health condition availing of the employability service at any one time. [15459/15]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 247, 266 to 269, inclusive, together.

The Government recognises the importance of increasing participation in employment for persons with a disability. To this end, the Department provides a wide range of income and work related supports for people with disabilities, which play an important role in supporting increased participation in the labour force by people with disabilities.

Among these supports is the Employability service, which supports people with disabilities who wish to take up employment. The service currently comprises 23 limited companies, each with a specific geographical remit and each fully funded by the Department. The budget for 2015 provides €9.6 million to run the service. 80 per cent of these costs are attributed to staff costs while 20 per cent are related to overhead costs, such as accommodation.

The average cost of the Employability Service is €2,900 per client. If the service was expanded by 1,000 clients, the estimated additional annual cost would be €2.9 million. While the service supports around 3,000 people at any one time, on average, some 2,600 clients exit the service every year. Removing the 18 month time-limit on support would effectively represent an expansion of the service which would cost around €7.66 million a year compounding.

While the Employability service operates in the context of jobs in the open-labour market, data in relation to the sustainability of such jobs is not available as the service is not in a position to monitor persons’ economic activity after they have exited the service.

Employability is focused on supporting, through job coaches, people with disabilities in the open labour market. Participants must be motivated to work and be able to work a minimum of 8 hours per week. The service is open to people between the ages of 18 to 65 years. The duration of the support is 18 months – the person’s underlying medical condition is not directly relevant to the provision of the service so it is not possible to state how many clients would have a mental health condition.

The pilot project - Integrating Employment and Mental Health Support - to which the Deputy refers is being led by Mental Health Reform. The Department is facilitating the project by providing funding to the order of €250,000 to allow each of the four Employability companies participating in the pilot to recruit an additional job-coach for the two-year period covered by the pilot project.