Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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401. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if his attention has been drawn to the circulation of a form by the education and training board management instructing staff to declare disability they may have or had including episodic illnesses. [55274/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The Disability Act 2005 requires public bodies to promote and support the employment of people with disabilities and to achieve a target of 3% of staff with disabilities. It also provides a framework for monitoring the employment targets through Monitoring Committees in Government Departments. The role of the Monitoring Committees is to monitor and, in consultation with the National Disability Authority (NDA), encourage compliance with the Act by all public bodies under its aegis.

Under the relevant legislation, aegis bodies of my Department are required to provide my Department’s Monitoring Committee with data on the number of people with disabilities employed in their organisations during the preceding year for inclusion in an annual report on compliance. The National Disability Authority has developed a suite of forms which are used by bodies for the collection of this data. These forms provide for the confidential and anonymous disclosure by staff of a disability and this information is used solely for statistical purposes. While staff are encouraged to report disabilities for the purpose of this Part 5 process, the collation of data is largely reliant on the voluntary disclosure of such disabilities by individuals.

Eighteen aegis bodies of my Department are obliged to report under the Act. However, in accordance with the guidance of the NDA and in keeping with the spirit of the Act, which promotes accessibility in as many areas of the public service as is practicable, some thirty two other bodies, including the Education and Training Boards, also provide statistical information to my Department’s Monitoring Committee on the numbers of people with disabilities employed in their organisations.