Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 9 November 2021
459. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Social Protection the community schemes or job initiatives available to persons with a disability or mental health issue such as schizophrenia; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [54024/21]
View answerIn addition to income supports, the Department of Social Protection provides a wide range of employment supports and services to assist jobseekers/existing employees with disabilities, and also employers seeking to hire a jobseeker (or support an existing employee) with a disability. The Department’s employment supports and services have been designed to focus on supporting the individual jobseeker, rather than being focused on their disability, to best assist them to obtain and maintain employment. The supports and services available include the following:
Employment Services
The Department manages the State’s Public Employment Service (PES) through its nationwide network of Intreo centres and contractors delivering services on its behalf, for example, Local Employment (LES) and Employability.
The Department's Intreo service is a single point of contact for all employment and income supports in the State. Jobseekers, including jobseekers with disabilities, who seek support from their local Intreo Centre, work with a case officer with a view to agreeing a suitable personal progression plan in order to access the full range of employment supports available. Intreo also delivers a recruitment and job matching service for employers.
Jobseekers work with a LES Mediator to develop a personal progression plan in order to access the full range of employment supports available. Providers also deliver a recruitment and job matching service for employers.
To address the additional challenges some jobseekers with disabilities may experience in securing and maintaining employment, the Department contracts with 24 companies for the delivery of EmployAbility services in 31 locations.
Access to these service providers is through referral: a jobseeker, with a disability, who is working with their Intreo Case Officer or LES Mediator may be referred to an EmployAbility service provider if it is agreed between the two that the jobseeker would benefit from the type of services and support provided. Providers deliver a supported employment model of services for jobseekers with disabilities. Jobseekers work with a job coach who provides both pre-employment and in-employment support and assistance. Providers also deliver a recruitment and job matching service for employers.
The Department also provides specific support for graduate jobseekers with disabilities through AHEAD (Association for Higher Education Access and Disability), a contracted service provider. This provider delivers the Willing Able Mentoring (WAM) and ‘Get Ahead’ Programmes on behalf of the Department. These programmes provide paid work experience and other supports for graduates with disabilities seeking to enter or re-enter employment.
The Rural Social Scheme
The Rural Social Scheme (RSS) is an income support scheme providing part-time employment opportunities for farmers and fishermen or women who are in receipt of certain means-tested social welfare payments, and who are underemployed in their primary occupation.
To be eligible to participate in RSS, a person must be aged 25 or over, must be in receipt of a qualifying social welfare payment (e.g. Disability Allowance), must satisfy the means test for receipt of Farm/Fish Assist, and meet the criteria of being a self-employed farmer or a fisherman/fisherwoman.
The scheme offers participants the opportunity to gain valuable work experience in their communities, and participants are contracted to work 19 and a half hours, and are paid the equivalent of their existing social welfare payment, plus an increase of €22.50 per week, subject to a minimum payment of €225.50 per week.
The RSS is delivered by a network of 36 local development companies and Údarás na Gaeltachta, collectively known as implementing bodies (IBs). Applications should be submitted directly to the local IB who delivers the scheme.
Community Employment (CE)
CE is an active labour market programme designed to provide eligible long-term unemployed people and other disadvantaged persons with an opportunity to engage in useful work within their communities on a temporary, fixed term basis to improve their prospect of returning to employment.
Persons aged 18 or over who are in receipt of Disability Allowance, Blind Pension, Invalidity Pension or Illness Benefit may qualify for CE if they fulfil the associated eligibility criteria.
In general, all CE placements for new entrants aged between 21 and 55 years are for one year. However, CE participants, working towards a major educational award, can seek to extend participation by up to two years.
CE placements are intended to be temporary. This is to ensure the continued availability of places on CE schemes for a broad range of long-term unemployed candidates. Those who are unemployed and in receipt of an eligible payment for 12 months or more may be eligible to participate on CE.
Wage Subsidy Scheme (WSS)
WSS has been designed for private sector employers and is aimed at encouraging the employment of people with disabilities through the provision of financial incentives for such employers. There are three Strands of the WSS that an employer can avail of:
- Strand I is a general subsidy to compensate an employer if there is a productivity shortfall resulting from the person having a disability. An employee must work for a minimum of 21 hours per week up to a maximum of 39 subsidised hours per week. The rate of subsidy is €5.30 per hour.
- Strand II subsidy is payable when an employer employs three or more people with a disability who are supported by a WSS Strand I payment, to cover any additional work-based costs relating to these employees. This top-up payment is a percentage payment based on the number of employees (strand I) employed.
- Strand III subsidy enables employers who employ 25 or more employees (Stand I) with a disability to be eligible for a grant of up to €30,000 per year towards the expense of employing an Employment Assistance Officer to support these employees.
Reasonable Accommodation Fund Grants
Intreo's Reasonable Accommodation Fund grants assist both jobseekers/employees with disabilities and employers seeking to support a new recruit with a disability or an existing employee who has or acquires a disability. The four grants available under these Funds are:
- Workplace Equipment Adaptation Grant (WEAG): Available to employees, employers and the self-employed towards the cost of adapting work premises of equipment.
- Job Interview Interpreter Grant (JIIG): Available to jobseekers who are deaf or have a hearing impairment or speech impediment. The grant provides funding towards the cost of having a sign language interpreter or other interpreters to attend interviews with the person or to have an interpreter present to assist the person during their induction when they commence employment with a private sector employer.
- Personal Reader Grant (PRG): Available to persons employed in the private sector who are (or are becoming) blind or visually impaired, and who need assistance with job-related reading.
- Employee Retention Grant(ERG): Available to employers to help retaining employees with disabilities through accommodating their needs or re-training them to take up another role in the company.
(Resulting from a measure introduced in Budget 2022, the JIIG, WEAG and PRG will be available directly to jobseekers through EmployAbility service providers in 2022).
For further information on how the Department's income supports can assist persons with disabilities to enter or return to employment (be that self-employment or insurable employment) and the range of employment supports and services available, jobseekers or a person seeking to return to employment should make contact with their local Intreo office.
