My Department operates a range of employment support measures for people on disability payments in order to encourage and facilitate them to take up available work and training opportunities. One of these measures is the rehabilitative earnings disregard that applies in the case of the disability allowance and blind person's pension schemes. Under the measure, people on means tested disability payments can earn up to €120 a week without it affecting their entitlement to payment and provided the work involved is rehabilitative in nature.
The rehabilitative earnings disregard was introduced to enable people with disabilities, who were engaged in sheltered work, to receive a small top-up payment without it affecting their entitlement to a disability payment.
In 1996 my Department took responsibility for the disability allowance scheme. Since then the level of disregard has been substantially increased. Many more people with disabilities can benefit from the measure such as those engaged in employment in the open labour market and participants on community employment schemes.
The question of further increases in the earnings disregard for rehabilitative employment would have financial implications and would have to be considered in a budgetary context.