Margaret Murphy O'Mahony (Cork South West, Fianna Fail)
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56. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the role his Department is playing to address the reality that persons with a disability are less likely to get a job and more likely to leave employment even when their disability does not create difficulties with everyday activities. [17457/17]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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In Ireland, people with disabilities of working age are only half as likely to be in work as their non-disabled peers. Employment is central to independence and social integration and offers the best protection against poverty.

This Government is committed to helping more people with disabilities to enter the workforce and move from welfare to work. My Department provides a wide range of work related supports for people with disabilities, which are voluntary in nature.

These supports include the wage subsidy scheme, which is targeted at employers to encourage employment of people with disabilities and the EmployAbility service, which supports people with disabilities who wish to work through the provision of a dedicated job coach. My Department also provides a range of grants under the reasonable accommodation fund, which comprises employment supports to assist people with disabilities to access and retain employment, and the partial capacity benefit payment. The combined cost of these programmes is estimated to be in the region of €55 million in 2017.

The overall direction of the Government’s commitment to improving the employment rate of people with disabilities is outlined in the Comprehensive Employment Strategy (CES) for people with disabilities. Under the CES, my Department has responsibility for a range of commitments, which seeks to address the multiple barriers faced by people with disabilities in obtaining and retaining employment.

As part of delivering the CES, an interdepartmental group was set up to identify any significant disincentives for people with disabilities in taking up or returning to work. Just last week, this group published its findings in the report, “Make Work Pay for People with Disabilities”. The report sets out 24 key recommendations aimed at improving the employment and retention of people with disabilities.

At the launch of the report, I announced that some of the recommendations are already being acted upon. The first change is that people on a long-term disability payment, including disability allowance, will be able to keep their Free Travel Pass for five years after taking up work. This goes beyond the report’s own recommendation of three years. The Department is also launching a protocol to allow people to return to disability allowance seamlessly if work doesn’t work out within a year. Implementation of these recommendations and those assigned to other Government Departments and agencies will make a real difference to people with disabilities and help them to achieve their employment ambitions and economic independence.

The full report, as well as Easy to Read and Plain English versions, is published and available on the Department’s website, www.welfare.ie

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.