Margaret Murphy O'Mahony (Cork South West, Fianna Fail)
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58. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the role her Department will play in the National Disability Inclusion Strategy 2017-21; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [50314/17]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The National Disability Inclusion Strategy (NDIS) 2017 to 2021 was launched in July, 2017. It sets out to secure an Irish society in which people with disabilities enjoy equal rights and opportunities to participate in social and cultural life, can take up work if they want to, and have choice and control over how they live their lives.

The Strategy sets out 114 actions under a range of cross-cutting themes and objectives. These include ensuring that public services are accessible to all citizens; enabling people with disabilities to have an opportunity to work and have a career; providing people who acquire a disability with the supports that they need to remain in or return to work if they so choose, and; developing approaches to ensure people with disabilities are financially better-off in work. A number of these actions are also reflected in the Comprehensive Employment Strategy for people with disabilities and the Make Work Pay report, both of which seek to improve employment participation and outcomes for people with disabilities.

The NDIS adopts a cross-governmental approach in which Government departments and agencies collaborate with organisations in the disability sector to ensure that the lives of people with disabilities are improved in both a practical and real sense. The role of the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection is defined both in terms of delivering a number of specific, identified actions in the strategy, as well as being part of the wider cross-governmental implementation of the strategy. The Department is assigned direct responsibility for six actions, mainly reflecting its role in employment and income supports for persons with a disability as well as a number of other actions in common with other departments. The Department also participates in the National Disability Inclusion Strategy Steering Group (NDISSG) which monitors the implementation of the strategy and which includes the National Disability Authority, the Disability Stakeholders Group and key Government departments.

I hope this clarifies the issue for the Deputy.