Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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129. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the total amount of funding allocated in each of the years 2014 to 2017 for pre-activation support for persons with disabilities in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11030/17]

Finian McGrath (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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The Government is committed to increasing the share of people with disabilities working in the open labour market, given that employment plays a key role in helping to ensure economic independence and offering the best protection against poverty. To this end, the Department provides a wide range of work related supports for people with disabilities. It should be noted that these 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.

The Department often uses the term “activation” to describe how it engages with jobseekers in their search for work. However, it is acknowledged that not all young people with disabilities are ready to enter the work force and that an element of “pre-activation” is required as an initial step.

Budget 2017 made provision for a new pre-activation and training programme for people with disabilities. The objective of this programme is to provide support across a range of activities such as the development of participant’s skills, (for example using public transport independently), work preparation, placements and sampling that would assist people with disabilities to obtain and sustain employment.

Prior to 2017, some pre-activation activities were delivered through disability activation projects (DACT), which was jointly funded by the European Social Fund (ESF) and the Department. However, not all DACT projects were pre-activation in nature. The following table provides details of all expenditure under the DACT programme in 2014 and 2015, on the basis that it is not possible to provide a breakdown of this spending in terms of pre-activation and other activities.

i. Expenditure in 2016 relates to interim funding of the Providing Equal Employment Routes (PEER) project delivered by the Walkinstown Association for People with an Intellectual Disability (WALK).

ii. Expenditure in 2017 is an estimate for this year and includes the Budget 2017 provision of €2 million for a pre-activation programme for people with disabilities and €1 million being provided through the new ESF programme: Programme for Employability, Inclusion and Learning (PEIL) 2014-2020.

I hope this clarifies the issue for the Deputy.