John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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795. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if measures will be introduced to expand employment opportunities for deaf and disabled individuals (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [49158/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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I recognise the vital role secure employment plays in providing financial independence, increased confidence and social participation for disabled people. My Department provides a suite of employment supports to ensure access to the workforce for all disabled people, including the Deaf community.

My Department's Intreo service is a single point of contact for all employment and income supports in the State. In line with the spirit of the UN Comvention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, disabled people can access mainstream employment and training opportunities and schemes such as the Work Placement Experience Programme, Community Employment and Tús. Intreo staff can also refer disabled customers to tailored supports such as Employability. This is a service that offers a professional job-matching service, on-going support and advice and information on employment supports for disabled people.

In July 2024, the Work and Access scheme was launched. Work and Access offers seven supports to help reduce or remove barriers in the workplace for disabled people. The supports include funding for a workplace needs assessment, work coaches, personal readers and communication supports. Funding is also available to employers for workplace adaptations and disability equality and inclusion training. Supports are available for both the business premises and remote workplaces.

Under the scheme, the Deaf community can avail of communication support and have access to sign language interpreting for employment opportunities. Support is available for interviews, induction and ongoing support to enable workplace communication.

In December 2023, my Department established the WorkAbility programme to support disabled people into employment through 57 local, regional and national projects. The programme is running from January 2024 to December 2028. It aims to support over 13,000 disabled people progress their training and employment ambitions over its lifetime.

The Wage Subsidy Scheme supports employers to hire disabled people through a subsidy. In August 2024, my Department published a review of the scheme to make it more accessible and flexible to disabled people and their employers. An additional €3.7 million has been allocated to the scheme. In June this year, we launched the reformed scheme. A media campaign to raise awareness of this very beneficial scheme for employers and employees followed the launch.

The scheme now includes employers in the community and voluntary sector and commercial state-sponsored sector. This change will expand the pool of potential jobs and opportunities for disabled people. The scheme has also been expanded to employers who employ somebody returning to work in receipt of Partial Capacity Benefit. This change will allow employees to keep their job if they acquire a disability.

Notwithstanding these improvements, the Government recognises that more needs to be done to expand employment opportunities for Deaf and disabled individuals. The Programme for Government commits to examining ways to make it easier to regain Disability Allowance if employment ceases and to expanding successful programmes like WorkAbility and the new Work and Access scheme.

Earlier this month, the Government launched the National Human Rights Strategy for Disabled People 2025-2030. This is Ireland’s plan to advance the realisation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The strategy adopts a whole-of-Government approach with individual Government Departments and State Agencies responsible for planning and delivering the commitments that come under their remit across five key pillars, one of which is employment.

Any new measures will fall to be considered in a wider policy and budgetary context.