Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 22 May 2013
135. Deputy Tom Fleming asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the target of his Department and subsidiary offices throughout the country regarding employment of persons with disabilities in the special category, and whether the target is being achieved; the total number of employees in that category currently and the percentage of the total workforce in his Department that it represents; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24617/13]
View answerPart 5 of the Disability Act 2005 sets out the following obligations on Government Departments and public service bodies with regard to the employment of people with disabilities.
- Public bodies must, insofar as practicable, take all reasonable measures to promote and support their employment of people with disabilities.
- Public bodies shall ensure, unless there are good reasons for not doing so, that at least 3% of their employees are people with disabilities.
- Public bodies must report on an annual basis to a statutory monitoring committee in their parent Department on the number of people with disabilities in their employment and the measures they are taking to promote and support their employment. The monitoring committees in turn submit their reports on such compliance to the Minister of their parent Department and the National Disability Authority (NDA).
Under the Disability Act, public bodies staffed by civil servants report via the Monitoring Committee in Department of the Public Expenditure and Reform, while all other public bodies report via the Monitoring Committee in their parent Departments. Public bodies must report to their Monitoring Committees by 31st March each year. The Monitoring Committees must then report to their respective Minister’s and the National Disability Authority by the 30th June. As the Monitoring Committees have not yet reported on the 2012 figures, the latest figures available in respect of my Department and the bodies within its remit are the 2011 figures listed in the table below.
|
- |
Total Employees 2011 |
No of employees with a disability 2011 |
% of employees with a disability 2011 |
|
Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation |
818 |
54 |
6.6% |
|
Labour Relations Commission |
50 |
5 |
10% |
|
National Consumer Agency |
40 |
4 |
10% |
|
Competition Authority |
42 |
1 |
2.4% |
|
County and City Enterprise Boards (35 bodies) |
130.5 |
3 |
2.3% |
|
Enterprise Ireland |
719 |
22 |
3.0% |
|
Forfás |
105.5 |
7 |
6.6% |
|
Health & Safety Authority |
182 |
5 |
2.7% |
|
IDA Ireland |
264 |
13 |
4.9% |
|
Injuries Board |
69 |
0 |
0.0% |
|
InterTrade |
43 |
1 |
2.3% |
|
Irish Auditing and Accounting Supervisory Authority |
14 |
0 |
0.0% |
|
National Standards Authority of Ireland |
141 |
6 |
4.2% |
|
Science Foundation Ireland |
49 |
0 |
0.0% |
|
Shannon Development |
122 |
6 |
4.9% |
