I propose to take Questions Nos. 95 and 106 together.
The Comprehensive Employment Strategy for People with Disabilities, which was launched on Friday 2 October 2015, sets out a ten-year approach to ensuring that people with disabilities who are able to, and want to, work are supported and enabled to do so. People with disabilities are only half as likely to be in employment as others of working age. The reasons for this are complex, and include level of education and skills, fears around loss of benefits, employer know-how, low expectations, and limited re-entry to work following onset of a disability, as well as a higher incidence of ill-health. The Strategy is a cross-government approach that brings together actions by different Departments and State agencies in a concerted effort to address the barriers and challenges that impact on employment of people with disabilities. In tandem with that, it seeks to ensure there will be joined-up services and supports at local level to support individuals on their journey into and in employment. The Strategy's six strategic priorities are to:
- Build skills, capacity and independence;
- Provide bridges and supports into work;
- Make work pay;
- Promote job retention and re-entry to work;
- Provide coordinated and seamless support;
- Engage employers.
Implementing the Strategy will require continuing interdepartmental cooperation and a joined-up approach to supports and services for jobseekers and workers with disabilities. The implementation of the Strategy will be subject to regular monitoring, and there will be a review and renewal every three years. It is the Government's intention to implement the Strategy in full. The key implementation issues relate to coordinating Departmental efforts in this area, rather than to additional funds.
Responsibility for the fund referred to rests with the Department of Social Protection. The Strategy provides for the incorporation of learning from relevant Disability Activation (DACT) projects that operated under the previous European Social Fund Operational Programme, to be used to inform policy development. I am informed by that Department that an interdepartmental working group was established in October 2015 to examine the findings of the evaluation of the DACT project report and to identify the next steps. Further details of the progress of the working group are available from the Department of Social Protection.
