Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)
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265. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection her plans or proposals under discussion to increase the age for the disability allowance application from 16 to 18 years of age; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [20285/18]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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I am assuming that the Deputy is referring to a national consultation process undertaken by my Department in relation to a number of recommendations made in the Make Work Pay (MWP) for people with disabilities report. The MWP report itself was published in April 2017 following a commitment in the Comprehensive Employment Strategy 2015 -2024 and was undertaken in order to better identify how people with disabilities could be supported to achieve their employment ambitions.

The consultation reflects a commitment made at the time of the publication of the MWP report to consult widely with persons with disabilities and their families in relation to the number of recommendations about the principle of early engagement and a proposed reconfiguration of the Disability Allowance (DA) payment. One MWP recommendation is to support young adults through education, training and social inclusion according to their capacity, and to change the lowest qualifying age for DA from 16 to 18 years. The other recommendation was to adopt an early engagement approach in order to support the employment ambitions of people with disabilities. Early engagement would mean that the State will support people with disabilities at the earliest stage possible to help them achieve their employment goals. To this end, people with disabilities would begin receiving assistance, advice and support from the departments Intreo service or other related services when they apply for a disability income support payment.

At the launch of the consultation process, I together with the Minister of State for Disabilities made clear that engagement would be voluntary: in other words, it would be a matter for persons with disabilities themselves to decide whether they wanted to avail of the supports offered through the Intreo service. This has been stressed at all stages throughout the consultation process.

The national consultation process concluded on April 13th and now will be followed by further consideration of the results with a stakeholder focus group. This group is comprised of persons with experience of disability issues and was established last September and has helped my Department with the design of the national consultation process.

I together with my Government colleagues, look forward to learning the outcome of the consultation process in due course. The Government will then consider what actions will best support the overall objective of improving employment outcomes for persons with a disability.

I hope this clarifies the issue for the Deputy.