Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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149. To ask the Minister for Social Protection his plans to tackle unemployment among persons with disabilities; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22543/16]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The Government’s commitments to facilitating increased participation in employment for people with disabilities are reflected in the Comprehensive Employment Strategy (CES) for People with Disabilities.

The Department of Social Protection provides a wide range of work related supports for people with disabilities. It should be noted that the employment supports are of a voluntary nature and are tailored to individual circumstances and a person’s capacity to engage with education, training or job-search programmes.

One of the principal supports is the EmployAbility service, which provides job coach support to people with disabilities in accessing jobs in the open labour market. Other supports include the provision of employment subsidies through the Wage Subsidy Scheme, workplace adaptation grants and specialist training courses that are specially designed for people with disabilities. Funding is also provided to AHEAD (Association for Higher Education Access and Disability) for the Willing Able Mentoring (WAM) programme, an employment placement programme for graduates with disabilities. For those in receipt of illness benefit for a minimum of 6 months or who are in receipt of invalidity pension and who acknowledge, on a voluntary basis, that they may have capacity to undertake some level of employment, the Department’s partial capacity benefit scheme is available to assist them to return to the workplace.

These supports, which are estimated to cost almost €44 million in 2016, play an important role in supporting increased participation in the labour force by people with disabilities.

Disability allowance (DA) recipients who, on a voluntary basis, wish to take up rehabilitative employment may avail of the DA employment disregard, which allows them to take up work and earn up to €120 per week without their social welfare payment being affected. Earnings of between €121 and €350 per week are assessed at 50% for means test purposes.

The measures contained in the strategy seek to address any barriers to employment and improve pathways to work, with the impact on employment building up over time. Among the DSP commitments contained in the strategy is the setting up of an interdepartmental group, under an independent chair, to review and make recommendations on making work pay for people with disabilities through the examination of the complex interactions between the benefit system, the additional costs associated with work for people with disabilities and net income earnings from employment.

As part of the CES, the Department is progressively rolling out its full INTREO service to people with disabilities who wish to avail of the service on a voluntary basis. In such cases, people with disabilities who present at an INTREO Centre will be offered an interview by an employment support officer with a view to agreeing a suitable action plan. In addition, relevant officers in INTREO Centres are being trained to enable them to interact effectively with people with disabilities. To date, over 60 employment support officers have received this training.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.