Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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390. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht how her Department and public bodies and agencies that operate under hers remit meet their obligations for reasonable accommodation under the Employment Equality Acts 1998-2015. [23057/23]

Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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My Department is committed to providing a safe and healthy working environment for all staff and strives to create a culture where employees feel comfortable in sharing their disability. This ensures any reasonable accommodations can be met, if required.

It should be noted that the declaration of a disability is a voluntary disclosure. If an employee requires an accommodation in order to conduct their work, this will be made available to them upon request.

All employees are provided with the opportunity to request any reasonable accommodations and/or voluntarily share their disability status to assist them with their work during the recruitment process, upon joining the Department and throughout any stage of their employment.

The Department has a dedicated team of people comprising of HR, Office Services, Health and Safety, ICT, Access Officer, and the Disability Liaison Officer to deal with reasonable accommodation requests. My Department also liaises closely with the Chief Medical Officer’s Office and the Civil Service Employee Assistance Service regarding employees who may require reasonable accommodations on return from long term sick leave.

My Department is obliged to report every year to the National Disability Authority (NDA) on the number of persons with disabilities employed at 31^stDecember. This information is published on the website of the NDA - nda.ie.

The information sought by the Deputy in relation to the bodies under the aegis of the Department are operational matters for those bodies and is not something for which I have direct, day-to-day responsibility.