Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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578. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the reason the criteria changed in budget 2017 for the wage subsidy scheme for employers (details supplied). [30055/17]

Finian McGrath (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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The Wage Subsidy Scheme (WSS) is an employment support to encourage private sector employers to employ people with disabilities, the purpose of which is to increase the numbers of people with disabilities participating in the open labour market.

The WSS operates as a subsidy to employers taking on an employee with a disability who has a productivity deficit amounting to 20 per cent or more compared to a peer doing the same job. To be eligible to participate on the scheme, the employee is required to work between 21 and 39 hours per week.

WSS applicants who are in receipt of jobseeker’s assistance (JA) can qualify to participate on the WSS if he or she has a disability. In cases where the applicant is not in receipt of a Department of Social Protection disability payment, a completed confidential Medical Report form and supporting medical evidence is required so as to confirm that the applicant has a disability and that this disability is causing or could cause him/her to have a shortfall in productivity, compared to a colleague without a disability.

One of the conditions for eligibility of a JA payment is that the recipient is available for and genuinely seeking work on a full-time basis and this is not consistent with the main condition for receipt by the employer of WSS. Accordingly, the WSS guidelines were revised to clarify this.

In circumstance where a WSS applicant requires additional income supports, then they can apply for a range of in-work supports such as the family income supplement, the back to work family dividend or the part-time job incentive scheme.