Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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251. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the additional supports her Department has made available or will make available to artists with disabilities who cannot avail of Arts Council grants or receive fair payment for their artwork without the risk of losing their stable basic social protection supports such as the blind pension or the disability allowance in order to ensure that disability is no longer a barrier to full participation in artistic life. [2793/22]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Both Disability Allowance and Blind Pension are structured to support recipients to avail of opportunities to pursue their own employment ambitions, be that self-employment or insurable employment. When an individual commences employment, they can avail of an income disregard of €140 per week. In addition, a 50% taper on earnings between €140 and €350 (this upper limit will increase to €375 from June 2022).

Grants are counted as means, but where grants are within the disregard limits, a payment will be available subject to satisfying the other conditions of the payment.

Persons in receipt of Disability Allowance or Blind Pension are also eligible to avail of the Back to Work Enterprise Allowance scheme, which allows recipients to retain a percentage of their social welfare payment for up to 2 years. Once accepted onto the scheme the person retains100% of their original payment in year one and 75% in year two.

 In Budget 2022, I introduced a suite of measures designed to support people with disabilities:  

- €5 increase across core social welfare payments/rates,

- Increase to the upper earnings disregard limit for Disability Allowance and the Blind Pension from €350 to €375 per week, effective from June 2022.

- Increase to the rate of Wage Subsidy Scheme, (equivalent to 60% of National Minimum Wage). This is a financial incentive to encourage employers to employ jobseekers with disabilities.

- Increase to the general weekly means disregard for Disability Allowance to €7.60.

- Increase to the Fuel Allowance of €5 to €33 per week. (The weekly means threshold was also increased by €20 from €100 to €120. This represents a 20% increase and enables more people to qualify for this support),

- Increase to the Living Alone Allowance of €3, from €19 to €22 per week. The Living Alone Allowance is an additional payment made each week to people aged 66 years or over who are living alone and in receipt of certain payments, including Disability Allowance and Blind Pension. 

My Department regularly reviews its supports and payments schemes to ensure that they continue to meet their objectives, while any proposed changes have to be considered in an overall policy and budgetary context.

In addition, the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media has announced a wide range of measures to support the arts. Most recently, this has included the launch of funding of €6.6 million for the 2022 Creative Ireland Programme - Creative Communities initiative. This partnership between the departments and all 31 local authorities will offer thousands of opportunities across Ireland for people of all ages to engage with creative projects in their local area.  In 2021 this enabled local authorities to deliver nearly 1,500 community-led creative projects. This funding has proved to be an important flexible resource that has enabled local authorities to sustain and develop vibrant creative communities.