Mary Wallace
Ceist:82 Miss M. Wallace asked the Minister for Health the funding which is available to small-scale enterprises involving people with learning disabilities. [14491/96]
Written Answers. - Employment of People with Disabilities.
Additional funding has been provided in 1996 and previous years for the development of a broad range of new day services for persons with a mental handicap. These developments may, in some cases, have resulted in the establishment of some small enterprise type facilities.
However there are two specific initiatives which the Government has introduced to provide persons with a disability, including persons with a mental handicap, with employment opportunities, namely the pilot programme for the employment of people with disabilities which has an allocation of £1.729 million in 1996 and the employment support scheme which has an allocation of £0.960 million in 1996.
The pilot programme for the employment of people with disabilities or PEP was introduced in 1994 and is administered by my Department with the assistance of the Department of Enterprise and Employment. The pilot programme is designed to run for an initial three-year period. The scheme has an employment support fund, as outlined above, which provides an ongoing subsidy payable for each employee with a disability and is related to his/her productive capacity. Assessments are carried out by the NRB. Seven businesses employing 150 people with a disability have been grant-aided to date under this scheme.
Further employment opportunities for people with disabilities are provided under the employment support scheme, which is also administered by the NRB. This scheme gives an opportunity to people with a more severe disability to participate in open employment with the employer being paid a subsidy by the NRB to make up for the loss of productivity by an employee with a disability. Over 300 people with a disability are currently employed under this scheme.