Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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154. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the details of the work his Department is carrying out to improve access and opportunities for employment for those persons with disabilities; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3447/17]

Finian McGrath (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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The Department of Social Protection (DSP) provides a wide range of services and supports for people with disabilities, both in the area of income support and in providing assistance with finding and taking up employment where a capacity exists.

These play an increasingly important role in supporting increased participation in the labour force by people with disabilities. They also support the implementation of the Government’s commitments contained in the Comprehensive Employment Strategy (CES) for People with Disabilities, which seeks to address the multiple barriers faced by people with disabilities in obtaining employment.

Under 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. To date, over 60 officers in Intreo Centres have received training to enable them to interact effectively with people with disabilities.

The DSP also provides a wide range of work related supports for people with disabilities. 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.

Most recently, Budget 2017 provided funding of €2 million for projects which will deliver pre-activation supports for people with disabilities. This is a new scheme, the objective of which would be to help bring people with disabilities who are not work-ready closer to the labour market through engagement in training and personal development activities. This would be followed by an incremental exposure to suitable work.

On aggregate, employment related supports for people with disability provided by DSP are estimated to cost almost €55 million in 2017. Furthermore, people with disabilities have access to most of the standard employment supports available to other jobseekers such as the Community Employment Scheme and Springboard.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.