Joint Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 22 Feb 2023

Employment Strategy and Impact on Disabled Persons in the Workplace: Discussion

Chairman

All those present in the committee room are asked and are expected to exercise personal responsibility to protect themselves and others from the risk of contracting Covid-19. Members who are participating remotely, as they are well aware, need to do so from within the Leinster House complex only. Apologies have been received from Deputy Matt Shanahan.

Today we are going to talk about employment strategy and how persons with a disability are impacted in the workplace. Many barriers are faced by people with disabilities when seeking employment. It is therefore imperative that employment strategies are formulated in a way that encourages inclusivity, and help people to overcome the challenges they may face. The Government is committed to increasing from 3% to 6% the number of employees with a disability in all Government Departments by the end of 2024. This target was recently placed on a statutory footing in section 101 of the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) (Amendment) Act 2022.

I am pleased that we have the opportunity to consider these matters further with the following representatives. From the National Disability Authority, we have Dr. Aideen Hartney, director, Dr. Rosalyn Tamming, head of policy, research and public affairs, who is joining us online, and Ms Marion Wilkinson, senior policy adviser with responsibility for employment affairs and further and higher education. From Pobal, we have Ms Anna Shakespeare, CEO; and from the Rehab Group, we have Ms Anne Marie McDonnell, head of business development, Mr. Adrian Stewart, head of employability, and Mr. Padraig Hannafin, public affairs research administrator who is joining us online.

I want to explain some limitations to parliamentary privilege, and the practice of the Houses regarding references witnesses may make to another person in their evidence. The evidence of witnesses physically present, or who give evidence from within the parliamentary precincts, is protected pursuant to both the Constitution and statute by absolute privilege. Witnesses are again reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable, or otherwise engage in speech that may be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, I will direct them to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that witnesses comply with any such direction I may have to give.

The opening statements have been circulated to members. To commence our consideration of this matter, I now invite Dr. Hartney to make opening remarks on behalf of the National Disability Authority.

Dr. Aideen Hartney

The National Disability Authority, NDA, thanks the chair and the members of the committee for the opportunity to present on this topic. The NDA, as an organisation, presents independent and evidence-informed advice to Government on policy and practice relevant to the lives of disabled people, informed by engagement with relevant stakeholders, including disabled persons' organisations. We also incorporate a centre for excellence in universal design, promoting the design of the environment, services and systems so they can be accessed, understood and used by everyone, regardless of age, size, ability or disability.

According to 2016 census figures, only a third of working age people with disabilities were in employment. This compares with two-thirds of those without disabilities. An EU comparison shows that Ireland has the fourth lowest employment rates for people with disabilities in the region. It also has one of the largest employment gaps between people with and without disabilities. Fewer young people with disabilities have third level qualifications compared to their non-disabled counterparts. Research has highlighted that a lack of adequate career guidance and transition support between education and training or employment are persistent issues.

Disabled people also experience poverty at a much higher rate in Ireland than their non-disabled counterparts, while there are many who also experience higher costs in their daily lives as a direct result of their disability, something highlighted in the 2021 Indecon report on the cost of disability, prepared for the Department of Social Protection.

The comprehensive employment strategy is a whole-of-government commitment to addressing some of the systemic barriers to employment for disabled people. The NDA has provided seven independent assessments of progress under the strategy to date. While good progress was made in the first half of the strategy’s lifespan, the NDA notes with concern that an action plan to guide activity in the final years of the strategy has not yet been agreed. This gives rise to a danger that earlier achievements will not be built on, and that learning gathered will be lost to the system, for example, work to test approaches to pre-activation through the Ability programme; testing and scaling-supported employment, as was agreed in a cross-departmental policy in 2018; and putting an information and advice service for employers on a long-term, sustainable footing.

The initial stages of the strategy were valuable in putting necessary foundations for systems and processes in place, developing a knowledge base, and testing solutions to some of the key challenges in the employment space. In order to build on this work, the NDA advises that future commitments should be focused on moving to the next phase of implementation, where relevant Departments and agencies commit to embedding these approaches in their day-to-day operations, monitoring and measuring outcomes for disabled people in employment as they go. This could be done under the banner of a United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD, implementation strategy, which will be developed over the remainder of 2023.

The UNCRPD sets out obligations for the State with regard to realising the rights of disabled people. Article 27 of the convention relates to the right to employment on an equal basis with others, and highlights that workplaces should be inclusive and accessible to persons with disabilities. The UNCRPD also includes obligations with regard to supporting self-employment as a viable option for disabled people, as well as employment in the public sector. It aligns to several of the sustainable development goals, and in particular goal eight, which relates to decent work and economic growth.

Part 5 of the Disability Act 2005 sets a minimum target for the employment of disabled people in the public sector of 3%. Public bodies also have obligations under the Public Sector Equality and Human Rights Duty 2014 and Our Public Service 2020, to create equitable and inclusive work environments.

The NDA’s most recent statutory monitoring report for 2021 shows that the current level of employment of disabled people across the public sector is 3.6%. However, 27 out of 213 public bodies did not make the minimum target, and all public bodies will be required to comply with a new minimum target of 6% by 2025, as outlined by the Chair. The NDA advises all public bodies to give early and focused attention to ensuring that this new target can be met, as approximately 2,000 additional disabled people will need to be working in the public sector over each of the next three years in order to do so.

The role of employers in closing the employment gap is of particular relevance to the work of this committee. There are still many employers who are apprehensive about employing disabled people, yet the current tight labour market offers an opportunity for employers to fill roles from a valuable source of talent in the working age population. We have advised that the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment can collaborate with other relevant Departments to provide necessary supports and information for employer bodies and employers in this regard.

Reasonable accommodations to support disabled people in the workplace are often simple and practical adjustments in the work environment that enable access to employment. The switch to blended and remote working fostered by the pandemic has offered many disabled people the flexibility to work which was not previously available to them, and shows how an adaptable approach by organisations can support increased labour market participation. Where more extensive accommodations might be required – such as adaptations to the physical environment or provision of assistive technology – there are grants available through the Department of Social Protection. The NDA understands that the Department is well advanced in a review of this grant scheme. We have advised the importance of ensuring any funding provided can be quickly and easily drawn down. Consideration of the accommodations funded is also necessary to ensure that they reflect the most recent developments in technology or other ways of accommodating different needs in the workplace. It is also important that the supports can be carried seamlessly from job to job.

Entrepreneurship is frequently favoured by disabled people as it allows them flexibility over hours worked and pacing of work. We welcome work under way in Enterprise Ireland to embed disability supports in its programmes for entrepreneurs who operate in the export market, but we also advise the importance of relevant Departments considering what supports are necessary for those disabled people who wish to be self-employed in the national or local market.

We also welcome developments in the area of legislation and policies to support flexible working, the right to disconnect, blended working and statutory sick leave. Each of these initiatives can help to make employment and entrepreneurship viable options for disabled people, as well as other groups in society who are under-represented in the labour market.

This labour market has experienced severe shocks in the last 15 years. The NDA notes that the impact of the recession in 2008 was particularly felt by disabled people, and that the recovery enjoyed by the rest of the economy since then has not been felt equally by this group. It is likely the pandemic further compounded this situation. It is important, therefore, that the State gives sufficient consideration to likely future developments in the labour market, including anticipation of where these developments may impact people with disabilities to a greater extent than their non-disabled peers.

OECD research conducted with the NDA in 2021 shows that people with disabilities are more likely to work in professions that are at a risk of automation in the coming years. We suggest that work should commence early to mitigate this transition and help support disabled workers into viable alternatives, and in general to disability-proof any initiatives designed around the Irish labour market.

In summary, the comprehensive employment strategy has given rise to some benefits for disabled people who wish to work. As the strategy nears the end of its term, however, there are still gaps in the system, and still challenges in achieving the cross-departmental cooperation necessary to effect further change. The NDA advises the importance of ambitious goals in relation to employment of disabled people being incorporated as a key pillar in the new UNCRPD implementation strategy. For every area targeted within this strategy, there will be actions for a wide variety of government Departments and public bodies.

The NDA suggests that this committee may wish to consider the areas within its remit where a pro-active and rights-based approach to employment and enterprise could be encouraged and overseen, and we encourage active engagement in the delivery of the UNCRPD implementation strategy.

Chairman

Thank you very much Dr. Hartney. I now invite Ms Shakespeare to make opening remarks on behalf of Pobal.

Ms Anna Shakespeare

As chief executive of Pobal, I sincerely thank the Chair and the committee for the opportunity to come before you today to contribute to its work by sharing key data, and to provide an overview of the inclusive programmes we administer in providing supports to people with disabilities.

Pobal's work ranges from programme design to implementation support, financial administration, and governance of funding allocations. We promote quality enhancement among local community groups, develop programme and system management tools, and we work to ensure funded projects operate within agreed guidelines. Our role is not one of policy development, but we do provide feedback on programme operations, develop good practice case studies and evaluations, and demographic information that supports Government Departments in making their policy decisions. We hope to share some of the learning from the programmes Pobal supports with the committee.

Led by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, the Access and Inclusion Model, AIM, programme aims to create a more inclusive environment in preschools, so children, regardless of ability, can benefit from quality early learning and care. The importance of this to the committee is very much at the heart of its work in a whole-societal approach.

The model achieves this by providing universal supports to preschool settings, and targeted supports, which focus on the needs of the individual child, without requiring a diagnosis of disability. It sets the tone and context for an inclusive future by supporting peer learning of children with or without a disability in an inclusive setting. The AIM programme started in 2016, and since then has helped many thousands of children with a disability to access and meaningfully participate in the early childhood care and education programme in preschool settings nationwide. The model has been internationally recognised and has won awards for both excellence in practice, and inclusive policy. The number of children who have been supported under AIM since the introduction of the programme in 2016 until January 2023 is 24,241.

The Ability programme was co-funded under the European Social Fund and the Government during its first two years of operation from 2018 to 2020. The aim of this programme is to bring young people with disabilities, aged 15 to 29, who were not work-ready, closer to the labour market using a range of person-centred supports. The programme was implemented nationally and supported participants in every county in Ireland. It supported a total of 2,195 young persons with disabilities, and 83% of the programme target of 2,662 participants. Some 1,755 young people with disabilities were supported to either find employment, enter into education and-or training, or become better placed to look for employment. Some 861 people gained a qualification while engaged in the Ability programme. A third of participants who were unemployed when they started Ability found employment after they exited, and a further 44% were actively seeking employment.

An evaluation of the programme has made 24 recommendations that will inform future policy and programme design, and work is under way with the Department of Social Protection to develop the Ability successor programme, with €36 million in funding sought for a new disability employment focused measure under the European Social Fund Plus. It is envisaged that the successful projects will receive funding for five years, 2024 to 2028. In the interim, a number of Dormant Accounts funding measures have been made available.

The Department of Social Protection made a Dormant Accounts funding measure available in 2021 to support persons with disabilities to improve their employment skills, advance their education or start their own business. Some 43 projects received funding, benefiting almost 2,300 participants, including 27 of the Ability programme providers. The focus was on providing supports to persons with disabilities to start their own business. The measure formed a key part of Government’s new Pathways to Work strategy, in particular item five of the strategy, Working for All - Leaving No One Behind.

The projects were of 16 months duration to 31 December 2022. A number of employment-related achievements reported by organisations to date include: employer engagement and supports; building a more inclusive workforce; skills development and career guidance; and in January 2023, an additional provision of €5 million was announced to fund projects where 38 of the 45 projects sought an extension to the end of 2023.

As part of the Dormant Accounts Fund's action plan for 2020, the then Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection also invited applications from community and voluntary organisations who wished to support and improve the opportunities for family carers, including young carers and persons with a disability.

The purpose of the funding was to assist family carers and young carers to build and retain contact with the labour market, including self-employment opportunities, and training and educational opportunities; and to assist persons with a disability to engage with the labour market and training and educational opportunities. The total fund for this measure was €5 million. A total of ten organisations with a remit of supporting people with disabilities were funded under this measure. Some 1,033 participants were supported to engage in employment activation activities and skills development training; 166 participants progressed into employment; 97 employers created opportunities for people with disabilities throughout the programme; and 182 people with disabilities reported a reduction in levels of isolation and loneliness.

The social inclusion and community activation programme, SICAP, is supported by Pobal. It is co-funded by the Irish Government, through the Department of Rural and Community Development, and the European Social Fund Plus, ESF+. SICAP has two goals. First, to support communities and target groups to engage with relevant stakeholders in identifying and addressing social exclusion and equality issues, developing the capacity of local community groups and creating more sustainable communities. Second, to support disadvantaged individuals to improve the quality of their lives through the provision of lifelong learning and labour market supports.

People with a disability are one of the programme’s 13 target groups. The programme is managed at a local level by 33 local community development committees, LCDCs, and actions are delivered by local development companies, LDCs. SICAP applies a broad definition of disability in which the social-economic complexities of disability are acknowledged and mental health issues are often significant. SICAP collects data on disability if the beneficiary identifies as a person with a disability when registering with the programme. Local community groups that named people with a disability as their primary target group accounted for 6% or 173 of the total number of groups supported by SICAP in 2022. Individuals who registered as a person with a disability accounted for 9% of the total number of individuals who received direct one-to-one supports in 2022.

The community services programme, CSP, funded by the Department of Rural and Community Development supports community-based organisations to provide local social, economic and environmental services through a social enterprise model and creates employment opportunities for disadvantaged people. Three main types of projects are funded under the community services programme, one of which is focused on supporting community enterprises employing people distant from the labour market, including people with disabilities. Applicants must be not-for-profit social enterprises or businesses with sufficient capacity to undertake service delivery and management of staff. Of the 432 organisations funded in 2022, ten services were defined as services for persons with a disability and an additional 33 services have specified in their service description that they work with people with disabilities. In 2021, 176 people or 6% were employed with CSP supports who were previously in receipt of a disability allowance. A redesign of the CSP in 2022 has introduced a differential funding rate model. This new model looks at three distinct metrics, one of which will incentivise projects that employ from marginalised groups such as persons with a disability. A new programme call is due to be announced in March 2023 and will give priority to projects supporting the circular economy that employ from marginalised groups.

As an organisation with a social inclusion mission and to meet our public sector duty obligations under the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Act, Pobal undertook an assessment of its equality, diversity and inclusion in 2022 and is presently implementing its action plan. More than 6% of the 74% of Pobal employees who chose to participate in the assessment process considered themselves to have a disability. As an employer, our role is to ensure that reasonable accommodations are made for these employees to ensure their continued successful engagement in the workplace. In the course of the past 30 years, Pobal has been working on behalf of the Irish Government to support individuals, families, children and communities. During this time, we have made a significant contribution to the economy and society in supporting the Government to deliver programmes to some of the most marginalised and disadvantaged individuals and communities in Ireland. We look forward to continuing and progressing this work into the future and I am delighted to take any questions from the committee about the information presented today.

Ms Anne Marie McDonnell

Good morning. I am head of business development and service design innovation with Rehab Group. I am joined by my colleague Mr. Adrian Stewart, head of employability. We both have had long careers working in education and training and in supporting people with disabilities to progress to employment. We are also joined online by our colleague Mr. Padraig Hannafin, who is public affairs research assistant and will bring the lens of the lived experience to discussions today.

It is a great privilege to address the committee and I commend members on their work highlighting the many issues affecting people who are disabled in the workforce in Ireland. Rehab Group provides services for more than 10,000 adults and children in communities throughout Ireland. We support people to live the lives they choose by providing care, education, training and pathways to meaningful employment opportunities. Rehab Group has three distinct divisions, namely, Rehab Enterprises, RehabCare and National Learning Network. Rehab Enterprises is a private company and a separate legal entity from Rehab Group, which works with a range of public and private sector partners in providing dynamic business solutions. RehabCare delivers health and social care services that reach into communities the length and breadth of Ireland, providing resource centres, residential and respite care, supported accommodation, outreach and home-based services. Through our learning division, National Learning Network, we deliver personalised education, training, and development opportunities for people with disabilities and those who require additional supports in planning their next steps, whether in their health and well-being journey, getting qualifications, honing and developing skills or progressing with further education, higher education and pathways to employment. National Learning Network receives funding from the 16 education and training boards, ETBs, and the HSE.

Since 2019, National Learning Network has worked in partnership with the HSE and supported hundreds of people with complex and enduring mental health conditions to secure competitive employment. This service is called individual placement and support, IPS. It is an evidence-based model of supported employment, focusing on the concept "place and train" which has been shown to be effective in Ireland and in countries across the world. IPS is unique in bringing mental health professionals and employment specialists together to collaborate. Supported employment is integrated with mental health treatment and is time-unlimited. Since 2019, 616 people who participated in IPS have secured competitive employment. Between 2017 and 2022, more than 2,400 people with disabilities got jobs through National Learning Network, through our bridging and transition services funded by the HSE and through specialist vocational training funded by the ETBs.

Supporting 2,400 people would not be possible without the great support of business communities in all areas ranging from micro-companies to multinationals. The business community has shown its generosity by providing time and expertise and helping people to learn about an occupation, job shadow, develop skills and have equitable opportunities. More than 650 employers are currently working with us. This month, one of our employers received an advancing disability equality award from the National Centre of Diversity. Mr. Price received that award for showing a case study of his company's work with the Rehab Group and in particular with National Learning Network, in placing almost 100 people in employment around its 60 stores. In respecting the business community, we must also work to build its members' capacity. One of our capacity-building inputs is the use of complementary online training on inclusive recruitment and retention practices. We developed this with AsIAm, WALK and Not so Different, with funding from the National Disability Authority.

Today is a wonderful opportunity to showcase the talents disabled people bring to the workforce but also to highlight some challenges. We will focus on the key areas of the wage subsidy scheme, return to work after the onset of disability, supported employment and quotas. We recommend the current threshold of 21 weeks in the wage subsidy scheme, WSS, should be lowered to eight weeks. High weekly hours discriminate against certain people and profiles. Eight hours of work per week is deemed an employment outcome for employability companies. We also recommend shortening the initial contract of employment limit to avail of the WSS to a minimum of three months. We recommend that strand 3 should not be paid pro rata only for multiples of 25 employees. We recommend the WSS keeps pace and continues to stay in line with the national minimum wage. In looking at the WSS, we draw the committee's attention to the employee retention scheme. These two schemes are different and we recommend that the WSS should apply to all employees regardless of employment duration to provide an ongoing incentive for the employer to retain people in employment, especially when their productivity is decreasing due to the onset of disability. This leads us to the issue of returning to work after people have an onset of disability while in work. We recommend an increase in employer incentives to promote the return to work.

In the ongoing discussions on the introduction of statutory sick pay, the Government could aim for an all-encompassing system that covers health conditions and all types of employment to realise significant gains for workers and the Irish population. We would also ask that consideration is given to vocational rehabilitation services to help restore and develop the skills and capabilities of employed persons with disabilities so that they can continue to participate in the general workforce.

The national EmployAbility service, funded by the Department of Social Protection, currently provides services for 3,000 people and is planned to go out for public tender. It is a great opportunity, but there is one area we wish to highlight. The current staff to service user ratio is 1:25, which is very high when consideration is being given to introducing people with more severe and enduring needs. There is a requirement to acknowledge and recognise the need for ongoing support for some people with disabilities beyond the current cap of 18 months. Circling back to individual placement and support, IPS, it should be scaled up for people with mental health conditions throughout the country and the sustainability of such programmes should be ensured through long-term planning and funding.

Once again recognising the amazing work of disability-inclusive employers, we would advocate for a public awareness campaign on the grants and subsidies that are available. From our experience of working with employers, we have found there is not a huge awareness of the grants and supports that are out there.

On quotas, we ask that in respect of the public sector there is a recommendation for specialist panels within the Civil Service and broader public service to provide accessible pathways for people with disabilities. Given the relatively low number of people with disabilities employed in the private sector and the relative success of some quota schemes throughout other EU countries, we ask that we open a discussion and debate on the introduction of a quota scheme for the employment of people with disabilities tailored to the Irish labour market and which would bring a renewed focus on the unemployment crisis. The scheme could be phased out when targets are met and we are fulfilling our obligations.

In conclusion, before I pass over to Mr. Hannafin, while Ireland can be rightly proud of the many developments and good work that continues to support people with disabilities, there is a need to bring about a renewed energy and focus. We now have a possibility, post Covid, along with technological advances, to fully embrace new ways of working and build on our past experiences. It is now time to address this critical human rights issue and hold our heads high, along with our European counterparts. I would like to introduce Mr. Hannafin on behalf of Rehab.

Mr. Padraig Hannafin

I thank the Chair and committee for the invitation to give a personal perspective as a person with a disability who is in employment. I am the public affairs research administrator with the Rehab Group. I have been in the role since 2009, having left University College Cork with three MAs to my name. At the age of 16 I suffered a spinal cord injury after a fall from my garden wall in my home in Kerry. After three weeks in the intensive care unit in the Mater and ten months in the rehabilitation centre in Dún Laoghaire, I returned to the same school, class and classmates as before my accident.

While I spent as long in third level education as I would have if I were to train as a doctor, not all of this was voluntary. I completed my final MA because I realised society as a whole was not quite ready for me, as a disabled person, to enter employment even if I was. The PA support I had received throughout my education did not exist in employment for a person with a disability. The person who had been there as a support to me physically in order to carry out photocopying, stapling, carrying books from one room to another and helping me with my lunch or going to the bathroom would not be there if I were to get a job.

This barrier, in combination with the indescribable fear that were to get a job I might lose the benefits that made the cost of living with a disability achievable to some extent, meant it was easier to stay in college. It was the easier and safer choice to halt my progression. It was the easier and safer choice to stay in college, and take up space, valuable resources and support, than to do what I actually wanted to, namely get into employment and start paying back.

According to a 2020 report from the ESRI, of the EU 28 nations Ireland ranked as fourth lowest for the employment of disabled people who are of working age. A rate of just 36% of people of working age with disabilities were in employment. While the report highlighted a lack of transitional supports from secondary schools to third level education, my example also shows that transitional supports need to have a greater emphasis put on them from third level education into employment.

In my experience, a multifaceted approach needs to be taken, including a view across society as a whole. For example, a college or university can be fully accessible and provide all of the supports needed for somebody with a disability, but if the transport service to and from a university is not accessible then those supports are moot. Very simply, no one stakeholder, policy or intervention can solve this issue on its own.

The support provided to employers to encourage the employment of people with disabilities are, in my experience, more realistically aimed at the retention of people with disabilities, given their short-term nature. In my experience, the supports were of no benefit to me whatsoever.

Disability awareness among employers needs to be actively encouraged and improved. I am employed within the disability sector. The majority of the people I know who are disabled and in work are employed within the disability sector, where obviously the understanding of disability is at its greatest. My wish is that this understanding of disability would be spread among employers more generally. This would reveal the untapped pool of talent among disabled people and highlight the documented benefit that disabled people bring to all employers, not just those within the disability sector. Research shows that disabled people have higher retention rates and lower absenteeism.

Things have changed and improved since I got my job in 2009. I would feel much more confident going into the employment pool if I were to seek to change jobs now. However, it still remains the case that for me my disability would still be my greatest barrier to getting employment.

It must be said that legislation needs to make provision for Article 27 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which commits Ireland to enacting changes that recognise the right of persons with a disability to work on an equal basis with others.

As I said, this is an opportunity for me to give my personal perspective of being employed as a disabled person, but also to give an opportunity for others to share their voices and let them be heard. I now want to give words to some of the participants in training and employment with Rehab. A participant in our hospitality programme in Wexford said:

Before the course I would not interact with people at all. By coming to the course and meeting people and getting out there more and talking to people, it has done a lot for my confidence. I feel I am ready for the world of work now.

Another participant in the hospitality course said:

I feel like I am more confident to go out into the world and to be perfectly honest I feel much more empowered. I am actually doing something. It is nice feeling.

Here are the words of two individuals supported into employment through our partnership with Mr Price stores:

I look at myself today and how far I have come. I have a job and I am delighted.

I got my job and it was like being part of a family.

Finally, this testimonial is from a former National Learning Network student who was supported into employment with Eir:

The best thing I have done since joining National Learning Network was getting a part-time job at Eir headquarters. In the end, I was delighted with myself when I received a contract of employment and all the hard work paid off. Working on my own has helped me become the person that I am today, which is more independent.

I thank the committee for listening and am happy to answer any questions members may have.

Chairman

I thank Mr. Hannafin. I invite members to discuss the issue with the representatives here. I remind members participating remotely to use the raise-hand feature and, importantly, cancel it when they have finished speaking. We have a speaking rota in place and the first person indicated to speak is Deputy O'Reilly. She has 14 minutes.

Deputy Louise O'Reilly

I am sharing with my colleague.

Chairman

They have 14 minutes between them then.

Senator Paul Gavan

I thank all the speakers and particularly acknowledge the powerful personal testimony of Padraig Hannafin. I welcome this discussion. I was struck by the comprehensive nature of the Rehab presentation. Ms McDonnell said: "It is now time to address this critical human rights issue and hold our heads high, along with our European counterparts.” I could not agree more with that point, which makes it all the more difficult to raise testimonies that are not so positive. I have been contacted by 38 employees let go two years ago by Rehab who, unfortunately, have to date been denied their redundancy entitlement, even in the face of a Labour Court recommendation after an independent financial analysis which decided the Rehab Group has the financial options to meet this claim.

Chairman

The Senator should not reference a specific case, much as I would like to talk about it because it impacts me in Limerick and I know most of the people involved. He may make a general comment on redundancy.

Senator Paul Gavan

The general comment I will make, having heard directly from some of these workers, is that it is incredibly hurtful to be denied redundancy people are entitled to. Important companies doing important work like Rehab – and it does wonderful work – have to respect the decisions of the Labour Court. It is entirely unacceptable that a Labour Court decision has been sitting there since November and to date the Rehab Group management has refused to implement the recommendation. I invite comment back from our participants.

Ms Anne Marie McDonnell

I thank the Senator for his comments. From our opening statements, he will be aware we have come today in relation to the broader topic of employment strategy but are aware this is a topic of interest to members. The process is ongoing so I am not in position to discuss that exact point. We appreciate the challenges there have been for the men and women the Senator referred to. Rehab Group has looked at how to support people on a personal level in relation to transition. That is one area. Another area to look at is how we understand that people with disabilities face challenges in getting employment throughout all our counties. We have supported people through the options programme, which is also supported by the Department of Social Protection. It helps people who have been made redundant to return to work. Nine people have transitioned into competitive employment from that programme. For many others, it is about supporting an informed decision-making process. Some people have returned to further education and others have made informed decisions that a transition to employment would not be their choice at present. We have supported them in looking at which social welfare payments would be supportive, as well as natural and community supports. We appreciate the challenges that have been there and we are here to talk about all the challenges in relation to disability and employment.

Senator Paul Gavan

The reality is, in one worker’s case, instead of getting €60,000 he got €20,000. There is huge hurt over this issue. I will not pursue it further, Chair, but it will not go away. The Seanad will take a vote on the issue next week and I expect full support from every Member for calling on Rehab to accept the Labour Court recommendation and pay the workers what they are due.

Deputy Louise O'Reilly

As a former trade union organiser who represented workers in the Rehab Group, this is not the first time that group has ignored a Labour Court recommendation. I hope it is the last.

I ask our guests from the Rehab Group and the NDA how confident they are that the 2025 minimum target of 6% will be met. Is it ambitious enough? On one hand, you want to set an ambitious target but there is no point if you are not going to meet it On the other hand, if you are not ambitious with targets, you are selling people short.

Dr. Aideen Hartney

I thank the Deputy. The NDA has the statutory monitoring duty for that public sector minimum target. Nearly all Departments have already exceeded the 6% target. The challenge is for public sector agencies to raise their game in that regard. There will be challenges for many in meeting it. We at the NDA provide guidance and support to public bodies as part of our monitoring duty. We make suggestions as to how they can approach recruitment and retention of people with disabilities. We hope that guidance is acted on and agencies follow our advice. There has been criticism that the target is not ambitious enough but an incremental approach is probably more practical for the public sector, given it encompasses a wide variety of organisations of all sizes and types. It is probably reasonable. We always advise in the NDA that it is a minimum target and ask that, where at all possible, organisations should focus on exceeding it. We hope that is taken up. There is a journey to go on. In the next couple of years, reports will show the size of the gap that needs to be addressed.

Ms Anne Marie McDonnell

On the 6% employment target, we would always say to be ambitious, but sometimes when you see a big stretch, it is difficult to reach that so we are also looking at incremental improvements. We have seen students in the National Learning Network avail of, particularly, the clerical officer route. It gives great progression opportunities. As with the private sector, much change comes from changing culture. As Dr. Hartney said, it is about inclusive recruitment and retention practices. That benefits public and private sector because it it is about increasing our disability confidence at all levels. That will make a culture of inclusion and belonging if we are all more confident in our decisions in recruitment and retention.

Deputy Louise O'Reilly

People can only learn by doing and experience, and be informed by that going forward. I ask Mr. Hannigan first and then our other guests to comment on how a lack of access to appropriate housing and accessible public transport impacts on people with disabilities in gaining and, importantly, staying in employment. If it takes a massive effort to get into work, you might be able to do it on day 1 but then there is day 2, day 100 and day 200. For people who have to live in or travel to big urban centres, how does that work? How does that constitute a barrier?

Mr. Padraig Hannafin

Housing and transport were key factors in my moving. I am originally from west of Dingle in Kerry, which is a very rural area.

That was a key factor in my moving to Cork city. Certainly, for a person with a disability in a rural area, the opportunities are few indeed with regard to transport. That was a key factor in my moving to Cork city to try to access employment because transport would have been too great a barrier otherwise. Having said that, the situation in Cork was far from ideal in trying to travel to and from university, for example. No bus was available where I was living. No bus route was accessible so I had to get taxis in and out to college, which for a person with a disability, or even for someone without a disability, the expense of that alone was quite large. I am sure for a lot of people with a disability it is going to be an issue if they cannot get in or out to college. I know from dealing with a lot of students, in the national learning network, that this can be an issue they face as well. Trying to get to and from their courses can be a great barrier to their further education.

Deputy Louise O'Reilly

It is awful to think that there are people who want to be out working but they are stuck in their house and, in some instances, stuck in an inappropriate housing situation. I put the same question to the other witnesses.

Mr. Adrian Stewart

The tangible ones that we are looking at are transport and housing. Other less tangible supports are required for people, particularly people with learning disabilities, around being able to manage budgets. There is an issue about being able to be part of a community. It is not just about going to and coming back from work; it is about being able to live independently. I agree with Mr. Hannafin that housing and transport are two of the fundamental building bricks but there other less tangible ones as well.

Ms Anna Shakespeare

Our observation is that the programmes we administer all have an employment activation focus as their primary objective. However, the critical success factors are often specialised equipment, access to accessible transport, adapted workplaces, individualised training and one-to-one support, which we have heard testimony about from Mr. Hannafin. That represents not just an implementation challenge but a funding challenge and may act as a disincentive to an employer or to an individual, and members have heard Mr. Hannafin speak about the associated costs.

I may sound like an old chestnut when I say that we need whole-of-government thinking in respect of who has responsibility for joining the dots, pulling them together and how that can happen. In the past we had a cross-sectoral disability strategy. We must make sure that those golden threads get pulled through all the different policy initiatives, which are superb for employment but employment will only happen with those other supports. A real ordinary life will only happen with those other supports. We certainly see that through the social inclusion and community activation programme. At the core of that programme they pull together a lot of the threads within that local community to support that person to integrate within all of that. Those are the critical success factors.

Deputy Louise O'Reilly

There is a Twitter account called Access For All and every morning that group tweets how many lifts are out of service. If we all put ourselves into the mindset of employers we will realise that it is very hard for them, and for other workers. Employers will be constantly thinking that so and so is not in today because a lift is out of order. Access issues are basic and it is incredible to think that people must ring up an organisation 24 hours in advance to say that they want a ramp. Trains should be an accessible form of transport but that is now how it works. In Skerries, the lift is often not working. I think the lift was working this morning but people cannot rely on lifts working, which makes accessing transport, etc., difficult for persons with disabilities. Ms Shakespeare is right that we need joined-up thinking but it must be practical. It is all very well for people to talk about aspirations and how these things make people feel but most of us go to work because we earn money. We like what we get out of work but the money that we get paid makes it that bit sweeter. We must move to a situation where people can know that they will get to work not just occasionally, and not just if the lift Gods smile on them, but every morning. All people must be able to get to work every morning and if accommodations have to be made then they must be made on a cross-government basis. It is really practical stuff that we need to consider as well as the aspirational stuff, which is very important. People get inclusivity and confidence from employment. Practically speaking, if someone rocks up to the train station in the morning and he or she cannot get on the train then there is only so much leeway an employer will give an employee before he or she is going to say that he or she cannot rely on an employee to be at work at 10 o'clock in the morning. That situation is not the fault of any one person, although I could talk about Irish Rail but I will not, but that does hinder people. I have some more questions and I know I will get a chance to ask them at a later stage.

Dr. Aideen Hartney

To respond to the Deputy, I ask my colleague, Ms Wilkinson, to talk a little about the transport actions that were set out in the comprehensive employment strategy as a recognition of exactly the points that she raised but I will first make an overarching point that we are talking about transport and housing and those other supports in the context of employment. What we would advise is that all those Departments look at everything they do in a way that includes disabilities. For example, where the Department of Transport or another organisation is looking at BusConnects or active travel, they should ask what the impact would be on various groups in society, including the disabled. It is not just thinking about how a person gets to work but is this transport provision inclusive for everybody, and ensure that is what lies behind the universal design approach. There has been some good progress.

Ms Marion Wilkinson

When the discussions on the comprehensive employment strategy were being conducted, the NDA took on a number of consultations. While employment, and further and higher education might have been the outcome that we were consulting on, in every consultation that we had, transport came up as an issue. We had some discussions with the NTA.

There have been some innovative pilot projects around the country. We are aware of the Twitter account called Access For All and its tweets. With some innovations that have taken place, we need to share the message about and recommend the inclusion of a taxi service that will bring people to work where public transport is not available. We must scale up those projects. We must ensure pilot schemes turn into more than that and are examined as part of the vision for future, and further, development. Across rural Ireland there are gaps in accessibility to transport and innovations are happening in that space.

Deputy Louise O'Reilly

It is all very well to talk about the future but the lifts are not working today. The infrastructure exists but if people cannot rely on it, disabled people are at a disadvantage. We are discussing the disadvantages that exist. Disabled people are put at a serious disadvantage when they cannot say for certain whether they will be able to turn up for work. I have more questions but I know I will have an opportunity to comment later.

Ms Marion Wilkinson

I appreciate what the Deputy said.

Senator Ollie Crowe

I thank all of our guests for attending and for their contributions. Dr. Tamming referenced the current rate of employment of disabled people across the public sector is 3.6% and that 27 out of 213 public bodies did not reach the minimum target. I find it unacceptable that 12.5% of the public bodies did not reach the minimum target. I am fairly familiar with the situation myself. I have heard stories about public bodies or Departments that did not seem to make reasonable accommodations for people with a disability. Can the witnesses tell me what can be done in these cases? Is there any accountability in such situations? If not, please tell us how we can ensure that the new target of 6% by 2025 in the public sector is reached. Naturally enough, if the public sector does not meet its targets then that conveys the wrong message.

Dr. Aideen Hartney

I thank the Senator. It is a challenge that a number of public service bodies still need to achieve the minimum target. A range of factors is at play. In some cases, it is about having a workplace environment where somebody feels comfortable sharing his or her disability status. Public bodies often tell us their reason for not achieving the target is that they know they have people with disabilities working for them but those people have not shared their status in the data returns to ourselves for the annual report. That is a lot about fear of sharing status, that it might impact on promotional opportunities or how people are perceived by their colleagues. That is really about creating an inclusive workplace environment. That is part of our advice to all public service bodies that they would follow the commitments and actions set out in, for example, Our Public Service or following the Public Sector Equality in Human Rights Duty, so that those environments become more inclusive and more welcoming.

It is also about accommodations at every stage of the employment journey, whether that is at recruitment or at consideration for career progression. It is about a mindset and a culture within the organisation.

Certainly, on the reasonable accommodation side, all our research shows that the vast majority of those accommodations are very easy to implement and cost little or nothing. It is only a few of the accommodations that might require more intensive investment. It is about a willingness to engage with the employees and understand what would work for them. We did a piece of research in 2019 that looked at Labour Court decisions as to why reasonable accommodations were not granted and we found that where a finding was made against an employer, the majority of the time it was because there had not been proper consultation with the employee. As the Senator can see, those are simple mindset approaches. Our guidance and our approaches - Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission is developing a code of practice on reasonable accommodations - all should offer assistance to employer bodies in the public and private sectors to address the situation.

Senator Ollie Crowe

I thank Dr. Hartney. Is there a breakdown of the type of disabilities in the public sector? Of course, we want to meet the targets but we also want to do it in a way that gives as many people as possible an opportunity to work. We do not want a situation where certain disabilities are being hired at a high rate while people with other disabilities are not being hired at all.

Dr. Aideen Hartney

I understand the desire that people would have to understand where different disabilities are being recruited and retained and whether there are any gaps. The balance to strike in this particular reporting duty is between employees feeling comfortable to share their disability anonymously and be assured of that and then when one stratifies by disability that guarantee of anonymity starts to fade away.

I see my colleague, Dr. Tamming, has her hand up online. Dr. Tamming could answer some of that data more efficiently.

Dr. Rosalyn Tamming

We do not have it specifically around Part 5 of the Disability Act in the public sector but, according to the census data for people disabilities, people with intellectual disabilities are the lowest down in terms of employment rates and people with physical disabilities tend to be at the higher end. We have that data breakdown by people with visual impairment, people who are deaf or hearing impaired and different types of disabilities that way. That gives us some information. We are aware that more needs to be done for some people than others to try and increase their employment rates.

Senator Ollie Crowe

I thank Dr. Hartney and Dr. Tamming.

Chairman

One second, I will bring Senator Crowe back in again. Ms Shakespeare wanted to come in on that matter. I will not use the Senator's time so.

Ms Anna Shakespeare

The Senator asked, as public sector agencies, what would, can and does work? While Pobal is not a public sector agency per se, we are on the register of public bodies. We have an employment rate of 6% of individuals with a disability. We have implemented a whole-of-organisation approach towards mental health first aid so it is okay not to be okay, and putting supports around that. All our workplaces are accessible. Regardless of your disability, if you have a physical disability, your workplace is accessible to you. We have made reasonable accommodations in access to work stations and work environments for individuals with a disability. We have the Excellence Through People approach which stretches us year-on-year to become an inclusive employer of choice.

Dr. Hartney referenced the public sector duty in the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Act 2014. The assessment will then dictate how we address it and your action plan then forms what you will do, not only to hit that minimum target of 6% but to build and grow it and create a culture in a workplace where it is okay to disclose the fact that you have a disability and to feel comfortable that you will not be discriminated against because you might have a disability. That requires an organisation to develop, disseminate and communicate its inclusive recruitment approach. For example, most recently, in a Pobal context, we broadened our recruitment to include individuals who might have a criminal conviction. We have had individuals with disabilities welcomed in our workplace. It is about being inclusive and creating that culture right across the organisation.

Senator Ollie Crowe

I thank Ms Shakespeare. In Galway, my home city, I am familiar with employers leading the way that are involved in partnership, for example, Tesco and Eye Cinema. I suppose I am asking in relation to the take-up of other companies and what is done to encourage other private companies to come on board to lead the way as Tesco Ireland is doing. That is prevalent in Galway city.

I commend Mr. Hannafin's testimony. He gave a human side to this and I commend him on that.

With regard to encouraging other companies to come on board, I see some companies leading the way, but what is being done to broadening out that sphere?

Ms Anne Marie McDonnell

We would like to share a case study from ourselves with an employer. We have permission to share their case study today. A lot of it comes from building disability confidence with employers. Leaning back, even to the Senator's earlier question, people are people and some of what we learn from the private sector we can also apply to the public sector.

We are working with Mr. Price Branded Bargains. It has got 60 stores across the country. It is looking at building up disability confidence at all levels, particularly the hiring managers and the supervisors in the store. Part of building up confidence is about exposure and about having authentic conversations about disability.

We have 650 employers. We have lots of wonderful, rich conversations, but a theme that runs throughout is an employer saying to us, "I am afraid I would say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing", which is understandable.

Even for ourselves as providers in the disability space, we fall into using titles and terms that are not familiar to employers. We talk about "reasonable accommodations", and perhaps that sounds like quite a costly intervention. What we have taken back - some lessons learned ourselves - is we realise that business-to-business talking to each other helps break down barriers. It is just that trust there.

Mr. Price allows us to share some of the lessons learned in what it does. They strongly believe in building confidence, giving work experience placements and being inclusive about how you hire. There is one wonderful example that I want to share about one of our students, for whom perhaps the traditional route would not have worked. They did a host company placement. They are very creative and instead of doing a curriculum vitae, CV, they wrote a poem about what employment would mean to them and then they met with a supervisor.

That was their accessible route into the job. They demonstrated their competencies on the ground and instead of a curriculum vitae they showed through a medium they were very comfortable with what it would be like. We really need to support employers to be creative in their inclusive recruitment and retention practices but to understand businesses are busy and need support in that way, and also create greater awareness around the subsidies and supports that are out there already. I hope some of that might be helpful to other private employers.

Chairman

I thank Ms McDonnell. The next slot is Fine Gael's and they have 14 minutes. I call Deputy Stanton.

Deputy David Stanton

I welcome our guests and thank them for their work and contributions. It is really fascinating. I get the sense though that we have taken the foot off the gas in this whole area for a while. I notice the national disability inclusion strategy has finished up. Do we know whether there are plans to start another one? If so, when will that happen? Also, who is driving this? Who is the champion?

I think Ms Shakespeare mentioned earlier the need for co-ordination. I know that the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, is doing great work in her area but I have submitted a parliamentary question on this, and it comes back to what Mr. Hannafin said about transport. It was answered in the past few minutes, which is really ironic and strange. The response relates to an issue that has been brought to my attention by quite a lot of parents who have children who leave secondary school and go on to work and other placements. Sometimes the children might have intellectual challenges. The big issue is transport. People are put on a bus and they get from A to B but then when they get off the bus and get to the place where they do their work is where the challenges arise. These are people with vulnerabilities and there does not seem to be any support there for that. I tabled a parliamentary question on that to the Minister with responsibility for equality and I received a response just now. He talks about the inclusion strategy finishing up and so forth and the Make Work Care report from the working group mentioned earlier. The transport working group that was established was particularly enriched by the contributions of stakeholders. That work has now concluded and the Minister states that his Department has no role in this, it is other Departments that are involved here. I am not sure about other colleagues but I get quite a lot of correspondence from parents whose adult children cannot get to work or on placement because of the challenges they have. Could the witnesses comment on this and are they aware of the transport working group and its report?

Dr. Aideen Hartney

I thank the Deputy. Our understanding is that the report on that transport group has been finalised but we are not familiar with its findings as of yet. However it did speak to that issue we have already touched on, namely that transport is a huge challenge that needs to be resolved. This feeds into the wider point about who champions or leads on this. The national disability inclusion strategy, NDIS, concluded at the end of 2022 and the idea is that will be replaced by a United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD, implementation strategy. This will take, again, that whole-of-government approach that underpinned the NDIS and indeed the comprehensive employment strategy but critical in that is that there are obligations and commitments for every Department. Disability is not a siloed issue that sits within one single Department. I think that can be a danger if we are looking for one single entity to champion that; everybody goes "oh that is being taken care of over there, it is not my issue". Certainly any of the advice we give into the system - and that we would support the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth on when developing the UNCRPD implementation strategy - is that every Department would take that seriously and look at the areas in their remit to see how we meet the needs of the disabled population of Ireland just as we would meet the needs of women and men on an equal basis. It is another diversity ground that unfortunately has been left behind a little to date but should be taken as seriously as meeting the needs of any other marginalised group in society. That means everybody needs to be on board and there does need to be the joined-up thinking across the various Departments.

Deputy David Stanton

I agree with Dr. Hartney but I also think we need somebody to champion this because if everyone is responsible sometimes nobody is responsible. We need somebody to really put it all together at the same time. Dr. Hartney also mentioned in her correspondence to the committee that an EU comparison shows that Ireland has the fourth lowest employment rates for people with disabilities in the region. Will Dr. Hartney send the committee the research information that underpins that please at some stage? Dr. Hartney also talks about, and this is really interesting, research in the area of adequate career guidance and transition between education and training, or employment. Will she forward that to the committee also? I would be quite interested in seeing that if it is possible.

Chairman

Does Ms Tamming, who is online, want to come in?

Dr. Rosalyn Tamming

I would like to make a brief comment on the transport working group. My understanding is that group conducted a mapping of what transport supports exist currently for people with disabilities in order to identify gaps and then the next steps will be to try to address and fill those gaps, just to give slightly more information on that.

Deputy David Stanton

That is not particularly in the committee's area but it does impact on employment so we will keep a close eye on that one. Dr. Hartney also mentioned that she has advised the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment that they can collaborate with other relevant Departments to provide necessary supports and information for employer bodies and employers. Can she tell us more about that? Is that happening, has that happened or will it happen? What does that particular sentence mean?

Dr. Aideen Hartney

It came through very clearly in the Rehab examples that employers respond well to peer to peer support, information and advice and the ability to ask questions and get information in what is seen as a safe space. We previously funded a pilot programme in the earlier years of the strategy where the employer bodies, Irish Small and Medium Employers, ISME, IBEC and Chambers Ireland came together to run such a support. Since then the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth has been funding an organisation called Employers for Change to do that type of work. Our advice on that is that it is a hugely valuable resource, well responded to by employers. It becomes an issue if there is not a sustainable programme of funding, and it becomes an issue again if it is perceived as a specialist disability service. We feel that probably a mainstream Department like the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment might have a role to play there in conjunction with the employer engagement unit in the Department of Social Protection. Again it is the Government that is behind this rather than a disability organisation, which again does not lead to the best outcomes for employers. I know Ms Wilkinson did a lot of work on it and I also see Dr. Tamming wishes to contribute on this.

Ms Marion Wilkinson

Our work with employers and our funding of that employer disability information service really was an illustration of all the points Ms McDonnell made. First, employers we were supporting did not know where to go for information. If they were making the decision to recruit somebody with a disability, where did they go? That gap is still in the system. The big issue was then around what questions they should ask at interview, and if a reasonable accommodation is required, where do they go. Really it is about the processes that are involved. The reasonable accommodation fund, as Dr. Hartney said, has been reviewed. We all look forward to the recommendations that come out of that and the fact that an additional €1 million will be added to that budget but what is the process that will happen because it is quick decisions that employers want? They do not want an administrative, bureaucratic system where they have to wait eight weeks to find out if they will get funding. The Employers for Change service that is currently running have said in feedback that a similar service should be available in every region in Ireland. The numbers of employers it is helping is phenomenal. It is pretty similar in its working approach to what we are saying but it is something that needs to be part of the system rather than another pilot project that is just attached to a disability organisation. It has to be seen that this is a place where business goes to.

Deputy David Stanton

I thank Ms Wilkinson. That is an Open Doors Initiative programme.

Ms Marion Wilkinson

That is right.

Deputy David Stanton

I am a board member so I am aware of the Open Doors Initiative and the work it does. Rehab is our supporting partner.

I am not sure whether Pobal or the National Disability Authority, NDA, are involved directly as partners or members. However, I agree that the work they have done is amazing. There is a great deal more that can be done. Are the witnesses aware of the work of the Crann Centre in Ballincollig. Have they come across that? I just bring it to their attention. It has done amazing work for people who are wheelchair-bound, and others, to work remotely. It is well worth a visit, it is a hugely impressive place.

Deputy Richard Bruton

I thank the witnesses for their input. I am struck by what Mr. Hannafin said about our being behind other European countries in regard to the proportion of people who get access to employment. What are the features of the regimes of other countries that we could perhaps learn from? From what they are saying there seem to be joined-up pathways. There are many individual pathways but they are ad hoc and the connections between them are sometimes hard to navigate. Is this national strategy addressing that? We have many initiatives that on their own terms seem to be performing well but the overall performance is probably short of what we need.

I would be interested in a few numbers regarding the scale. What are we talking about in regard to the private sector? We know that it is 3.6 in the public sector. What is it like in the private sector? What do we need to reach to have opportunities comparable with other countries? To give time for an answer, does remote working create new opportunities? The issue of the social dimension of work was mentioned. Remote working probably does not deliver that but presumably it delivers in other areas. Are there specific measures in the remote working environment that could be developed to open up new opportunities?

Dr. Rosalyn Tamming

I will start and my colleagues might come in. We advise that looking at the actual employment rate, namely 36% in Ireland at the moment, for people with disabilities, versus 72% roughly for the rest of the population, is not all that helpful when employment rates can fluctuate based on how the economy is doing. Sometimes looking at the disability employment gap, the difference between those rates, is more useful. On that metric we are actually at the bottom of the table throughout Europe with 41.3% compared with an EU average of 23.1%. Some people argue that Irish people are less inclined to say they have a disability than people in other countries. I do not think that is an explanation. There are some schemes that do not take place in Ireland, for example, vocational rehabilitation. It may be difficult for a person who acquires a disability while at work to return to work. They end up leaving the workplace because accommodations are not made for them or there is no clear pathway for them to progress back into employment, or to change employment if they need to. Also, there is not a system of supported employment for people who require more intensive and ongoing support. Plans were in place for that as part of the comprehensive employment strategy that never got off the ground. Something extra is required for those people who have more severe disabilities that require extra support. There are many comparisons with Europe and a good deal of data. Our own census data will be published later this year.

Deputy Richard Bruton

I am more interested in what other European countries are doing. Are there ideas we could pick up from some of those countries?

Dr. Rosalyn Tamming

Yes, the OECD did a piece of work for us two years ago. It looked at Ireland and did comparisons with other countries. It believed that our public employment service, the Intreo offices and so forth were not as proactive as they could be. In other countries they are more proactive in reaching out to people with disabilities and supporting them into employment. In fact one of the Scandinavian countries does not allow anyone to go onto disability allowance until over the age of 40, so that efforts have to be made up to that age. I will pass over to my colleague, Ms Wilkinson, who will have more information on what some of the other EU countries are doing.

Ms Marion Wilkinson

When the OECD did that report for us it looked at where we stood in relation to other European countries. Dr. Tamming has spoken about supported employment but that is a huge gap we have in comparison with other European countries, with the conditionality in Ireland versus other European countries. For example the option of working six or eight hours a week is not included in our model of supported employment. There is a restriction - and my colleagues in Rehab Group will know more about this - or a limitation on the kind of support that a job coach will deliver. In the Irish system it is 18 months whereas in other European countries if a disabled person wants to stay at work and has access to a job coach, that is maintained. There is also a caseload number of 25 people in the Irish system that a job or supported employment coach would work with. They are all people with high support needs. That is quite an unwieldy number. The supported employment model here is quite an outlier in comparison with what they are doing in other European countries. There are also soft-skill practices that we do not seem to do in Ireland that are available in other European countries. This is a way in which the reasonable accommodation fund is framed and applied. Some of that is, if somebody wants to take reduced hours, depending on their needs, we do not have that in place. The OECD made a few recommendations about reduced hours or flexible working and more supported, remote, working, that we should have available to people. They are the kinds of options that other European countries have in place, and we do not. They are practical things that we could develop and initiate.

Mr. Adrian Stewart

Going back to a point somebody made in the area of vocational rehabilitation, structurally our system is that if somebody acquires a disability, be that through an accident at work or acquired outside of work, our system does not allow that person to be caught before they are on long-term illness. The gap there is vocational rehabilitation, where we could be able to step in, put a return-to-work plan in place for that individual and obviously support the employer as well. It is a specific gap.

Deputy Richard Bruton

Is that the responsibility of Solas or the ETBs?

Mr. Adrian Stewart

Vocational rehabilitation essentially does not exist in Ireland as a practice.

Deputy Richard Bruton

Would Mr. Stewart like to comment on remote working? I may be overstaying my welcome.

Chairman

We have time.

Ms Anne Marie McDonnell

Yes, Deputy, on remote working I believe it presents wonderful opportunities to increase the employment rate of people with disabilities, in particular when we hear about challenges around transportation. That is definitely one way in which it can be overcome. The other argument we find with some of our students who are interested in remote working is broadband coverage or lack of it in their homes to be able to take up some of the opportunities. One issue with remote working that we recently looked at is the e-sports and gaming industry in Ireland which is growing quickly. Many young people we meet are gaming. Many of us had some unconscious biases around gaming before we realised it actually presents very real employment opportunities.

We are working with a wonderful partner, Epic Global, which is showing us the way, and we have met students who are on their way to being broadcasters working in media. "Shoutcaster" is the proper word. From my time at the front line instructing and managing, I had ideas about the social aspect of work but one of our students made me aware that my thoughts were a little outdated. Students explained to me that much of their community and social activity is online and that the virtual gaming community, in which they would like to work eventually, is real. We need to harness this because there are genuine opportunities for inclusion and accessibility in this space.

Ms Marion Wilkinson

The NDA has produced a paper on the delivery of vocational rehabilitation that we would be delighted to share. To reinforce the comments from the Rehab Group, we just do not have a system in place in Ireland. The return-to-work aspect after acquiring a disability is one in respect of which the system does not talk to itself. On the point about triggering a disability allowance or an illness benefit and the kinds of supports that kick in at that point, we just do not have in place what I have in mind. Other jurisdictions look at the job coach, the support and employment person, as a case manager who does all the navigation and linking in. We have some information that we could share on that.

Mr. Padraig Hannafin

While I believe remote working provides fantastic opportunities to people with disabilities to avoid the difficulties with transport that they would have faced in trying to get into employment, I would not like remote working to become an easy way out for employers such that they could avoid putting in reasonable accommodations and simply provide the laptop, with people with disabilities working from home. I am passionate about the fact that it should remain the choice of the person with the disability to work remotely or enjoy the social element and camaraderie they would have in the office setting. It should not become an easy solution to avoid making changes or providing reasonable accommodations.

Chairman

Does Deputy Bruton want to finish up or is he finished?

Deputy Richard Bruton

I would say I have outstayed my welcome. I will wait for the next opportunity.

Chairman

The Deputy is well over time but I will give him another minute if he wants.

Deputy Richard Bruton

I found those comments very useful. If we are to report on this, it will probably be a matter of focusing on the OECD and the possible role of SOLAS or education and training boards in filling the gaps. Are there exemplars in the public or private sector who could become ambassadors for increasing the proportion of employers who engage and feel comfortable in the knowledge that they can deliver reasonable accommodation? Corporate social responsibility is being considered much more and there may be an opportunity to shoehorn in better practice through such channels. Is this being explored in the public sector or private sector?

Ms Anne Marie McDonnell

One of the best ways to have ambassadors is to allow people with lived experience to be the ambassadors in the public and private sectors. They can discuss matters from their experience in a really authentic way.

I was struck by Mr. Hannafin's comment that there should not be an easy get-out concerning reasonable accommodations. People who have experienced barriers regarding work can show what is possible. Sometimes it is not about a lot of money but just about a different way of thinking and working. Would another fantastic way to employ more people with disabilities not be to have them as the disability-inclusion champions in the public and private sectors, showing us the way and changing the statistics?

Ms Anna Shakespeare

There is a golden thread, a repeated message, on how to engage with employers, through the research, practical experience and the evaluation of some of the practical programmes that have been funded by the Government. Some of the learning is about offering employers incentives, including tax incentives, to hire people with disabilities in roles with no minimum-hour requirement. This is certainly a key finding from the Ability programme. A national media campaign is needed to raise and increase awareness of the benefits of employing people with disabilities. There are many nodding heads on this side of the table and the other.

Employer quality assurance or benchmarking should be considered regarding the Deputy's point on corporate social responsibility. Is there something this committee might recommend to the Government on an employer quality assurance mark, accreditation mark or benchmark to show commitment to employing people with a disability or to serve as a badge for employers to show the wider community they are ethical employers? This is an area of increasing value that could be leveraged in both the public and private sectors. I certainly believe there are many things that can be done and that could be driven through the work of this committee.

Chairman

That is very interesting. We will follow up on that.

Deputy Louise O'Reilly

I acknowledge that the Twitter account is called Access for All Ireland. I believe I got the name wrong. I thank Sophia and her dad.

Chairman

Did they tweet?

Deputy Louise O'Reilly

No. I actually checked because I did not believe the name was right. I thank Sophia and her dad because they record the information every morning. My heart sinks every morning on seeing the number of lifts out of order. What do people do? If they can go up the stairs, they are grand. If they cannot, they have to ring work again to say they will not be in because they do not have the shillings for a taxi and that the train will not take them.

I want to ask about the lack of employment supports for people with disabilities, specifically the self-employed. I apologise if this was touched on when I was out. We know Article 27(1)(f) of the UNCRPD commits Ireland to "promote opportunities for self-employment, entrepreneurship, the development of cooperatives and starting one's own business", but whenever questions are raised with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment about specific supports for persons with disabilities the replies list all the supports, small as they are, that are generally available for the self-employed. Since these supports are general, could the delegates talk a little about the difficulties faced specifically by people who are self-employed? This is an area that might be overlooked in terms of potential for growth.

Ms Marion Wilkinson

We know from our own research and the work that took place in Europe that 14% of people with a disability in employment are self-employed. This is a huge avenue and choice for people because of the control they have over hours worked, the type of work, and considerations related to everyday living.

Regarding the question on useful initiatives, Enterprise Ireland has done work with the likes of Izzy Wheels, which has outward-facing export figures. With regard to self-employed people who might also be called sole traders, there is a huge gap in supports available to them. One of the recommendations the NDA made in light of the review of the reasonable accommodation fund by the Department of Social Protection last year was that self-employed people with disabilities should be regarded as employers and have access to the fund. One way of envisaging that is in the context of a self-employed person who might need some assistive technology or a personal assistant. It might be framed as part of the reimagining of what the reasonable accommodation fund is about.

There is a gap not just in the social welfare space but also in accessing further education and training when your hours are limited to producing what you are producing or thinking to the future. In some ways the role and application of self-employment and sole trader have not really been examined within the bigger picture of what employment means. That stems from the way we have looked at this culturally. Again I would have to say that is changing with very successful entrepreneurs standing tall and saying this is what they need.

Deputy Louise O'Reilly

I have a specific question for Ms Shakespeare on the access and inclusion model. In her opening statement she points to the fact that the model is doing significant work. As children with a disability progress further through the education system, what supports are there, particularly in terms of preparing people with soft and hard skills for future employment? Could Ms Shakespeare also speak about what can be done in this regard if those supports are not there? Whereabouts would she put the supports to even it up?

Ms Anna Shakespeare

I am limited in what I can respond to in the context of the Pobal programme implementation. The Deputy is dead right. The access and inclusion model has been transformational for children between the ages of two and five and their participation in ordinary preschool settings with their non-disabled peers. They get the opportunity to develop friends, something they might not have been in a position to do, particularly when we consider a child with multiple disabilities or life-limiting conditions. The programme enables the preschool not only to accommodate the child but to have the child participate in activities through therapeutic supports, equipment, or upskilling of the teacher. It is a critical success factor for active participation for a child from the time of their first social experiences.

The Deputy's question is about how we keep that thread going through primary, secondary and tertiary education and into the employment piece. I will take it back. I think we have some really good examples of good practice, for example where we might have some SNA supports. We have people now being included in mainstream educational environments. There is much more inclusion. We are speaking about people who are neurodiverse and their inclusion in mainstream education, all those accommodations, and further and higher education making accommodation in the context of accessibility. However, on that golden thread being pulled through, as we say in the notes to the committee at the end, it goes back to Deputy Stanton's point about responsibility for the co-ordination. It cannot rest with one Department, in Pobal's view. That would certainly be our observation. There are different pockets of brilliance in terms of policy implementation. As a nation we have a really strong set of policies. Where we sometimes fall down is joining the dots from a funding perspective and supporting Departments from a policy perspective to thread their policies together.

Deputy Louise O'Reilly

We are coming back to the same point all the time. It needs to be a cross-departmental approach. As Deputy Stanton has pointed out, though, when everybody is responsible sometimes nobody is responsible. Therefore we have to have a lead. We have a lead and because of that we end up saying it is not enough to have one person. We would all have to wonder how we can break that kind of cycle. I see it very particularly in respect of the return to work. In my previous work I encountered people who acquired a disability while they were in employment but maybe could not go back to their own employment. There is confusion about whether it is HR, the line manager, or an outside agency or whoever is there to provide the supports. I wonder if the reasonable accommodation fund is exhausted all of the time.

Dr. Aideen Hartney

We know the figures on the reasonable accommodation fund indicate that it is underspent a lot of the time. There is a sense that it is not meeting the needs it was established for. We are very much looking forward to seeing what the Department decides on the basis of the review.

Coming back to that idea of transition supports and leading from the excellent work done at the preschool age, there is also good work and there are good support networks in place at primary school level and onwards into secondary school level. It is the bridging and, as Ms Shakespeare has said, taking that through to other levels. I would also advise the committee that there is a cross-departmental group working on that transitions piece at the moment and it does have all the different Departments at the table. The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth is represented for the preschool side of things and the equality dimension. The Department of Education is present for primary and secondary years and the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science is there for the next phase. The Department of Social Protection is there in respect of what comes next and how it works together. That group's work is ongoing but it is a recognition of that cross-departmental piece that has been missing to date. It is a space to watch and we very much look forward to what comes from it.

Deputy Louise O'Reilly

Excellent. If I could ask one question on the reasonable accommodation fund, it is not being used and we are all sitting here today talking about the fact that it is very necessary. We all know that employers will need to be supported and it is not something they are going to be able to manage necessarily on their own. If it is not being used, is it because it is too hard to access the fund? Is there a lack of understanding on the part of employers about what is there? Is it that people do not know they can go and ask? Sometimes if the person themselves looks at their job, and as I said I have encountered this, people go back sometimes to very different work from the work that they had. They go back to more appropriate work that they can do or a work pattern that is more accommodating for them. Where is the blockage on that? If we reorient the fund to include supports for people who are self-employed that is important, but an awful lot of people who are not self-employed are not getting the access or benefit of this. I can see a couple of hands up. I will ask Mr. Stewart first.

Mr. Adrian Stewart

In terms of employers accessing the reasonable accommodation fund, there is a stage before that, namely the lack of awareness we have already talked about. For quite a lot of employers we deal with, we find that they know somebody or there is a person in their family who has a disability and that is why they have become interested in it and become champions of it. We rarely get employers coming to us asking to hear more about the reasonable accommodation fund and how they can access it. We would need to be working with them before they get to that point around creating awareness and having a champion. We find that having a champion within an employer's work site is what works. Then we can get some movement from there.

Deputy Louise O'Reilly

Very often that is down to personal experience. We cannot mandate that somebody with that experience is in every workplace. Again, the person with the personal experience has to be able to speak up and be that champion in the workplace. Sometimes people do not want to do that. Ms Shakespeare had her hand up as well.

Ms Anna Shakespeare

It was back to the Deputy's prior question around transition and what works. I am aware of the cross-departmental groups. One of the findings from the Ability programme involves the really good example of the Walkinstown Association for People with an Intellectual Disability, WALK, which is probably in the Deputy's own area. The local students in the special education school do not have access to career guidance. Their expectations from a school perspective are set at a low bar. I am not trying in any way to take away from the excellent work of other programmes but the expectation is that they will automatically move into a HSE-funded day service, New Directions, and that is their path. That is the expectation that is created with their mams and dads. As we know, our mams and dads are at the heart of driving where we go. The career guidance programme WALK has run over the last number of years is now being replicated in 100 schools across the Dublin area. It is about seeing a future that goes beyond being a disabled person and only being educated with, living with or working alongside other disabled individuals, but rather that disabled people are part of the mainstream and fabric of Irish society. It is starting at those transition points and creating that expectation. We have lots of really good practice case studies, as everybody has described this morning, which given the opportunity could really be replicated and make a big difference.

Deputy Louise O'Reilly

We just need to be ambitious.

Ms Marion Wilkinson

I was going to talk about the reasonable accommodation fund.

Our experience of funding projects and speaking to employers is that when they tried to access the fund they found it quite unwieldy and it took a number of weeks to hear back. If two potential employees are sitting in front of an employer and one does not need the reasonable accommodation fund and the other does, the employer will go with the person who does not need it for a job that is starting the following day. A simplistic view is that there is too much administration involved. As I have mentioned, the way the fund is conceived needs to be rethought.

The NDA's advice to the Department is that as the fund is for the person, the person should be the one accessing the fund. Many people whose employers have accessed the reasonable accommodation fund then change jobs but the piece of equipment involved stays with the previous employer with nobody using it. If the funding stayed with the person it would empower the person and it would be far more in the spirit of what we are about.

Some innovations have taken place. The reasonable accommodation passport is a joint initiative between IBEC and ICTU. It is a process the employer and individual can go through. The description of a person's needs comes up only once. It is not something people have to keep going through. It also incorporates the needs of people who are self-employed. We have had a very limited understanding of what the fund could be. What might move the conversation on a little further is when the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission produces a code of practice. We need to think about what the fund is for.

Deputy Louise O'Reilly

And be ambitious.

Ms Marion Wilkinson

Yes.

Dr. Rosalyn Tamming

I want to add to what Ms Shakespeare said. She made a very good point about special schools. Committee members may be aware that special schools are designated as primary schools even though they educate children up to the age of 18. Therefore, they do not get an allocation for career guidance in the same way as a typical secondary school. We are doing work on career guidance for students with disabilities and how it can be improved.

Deputy David Stanton

This is very interesting and we are learning more and more. I was a guidance counsellor in another life a long time ago. I know the value of career guidance counsellors in our school and how they can work. There is much work to be done with career guidance counsellors in this transition. The point about special schools is well made. I am aware they are designated as primary schools and it is a very important point.

There are many ways in which people are disabled. Has any research been carried out on the level of employment or unemployment pertaining to the various categories of disability? Are people who are disabled in certain ways more disadvantaged than others with regard to employment? Are there areas we should focus on more? Are there some areas that are doing very well? We hear that 12.5% of the public bodies did not reach the minimum target and the level of employment of disabled people in the public sector is 3.6%. Is there further breakdown of this with regard to the challenges and disabilities that people experience? Mention was made of an employer helpline. Is it up and running? What is it? Where is it? Does it work?

Dr. Aideen Hartney

The breakdown of the type of disability as Dr. Tamming said earlier comes from the census of 2016. It is a little bit outdated. It showed the lowest employment rate was for people with intellectual disabilities and the highest employment rate was for people with hearing difficulties. There is a spectrum in between. I understand the census 2022 disability module will be out in the third quarter of this year and we will have more updated statistics. There is much work required to support people with intellectual disabilities in the workplace.

I mentioned the employer helpline. It is something that the NDA funded on a pilot basis between 2015 and 2019. It has since been replaced by the Employers for Change initiative that Ms Wilkinson spoke about. It is the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth that has provided the funding for this initiative. We believe that it needs to be put on a sustainable and long-term footing. At present it is funded not quite on a year to year basis but there is no long-term certainty about its future. The funding would also need to reflect the resourcing required. As Ms Wilkinson said earlier, those involved believe they could meet the needs of many more employers than they are in a position to do. It is an area that needs attention. It is a business-facing support that is required. Organisations such as Rehab and others provide the disability-facing support. It is the needs of business that need to be met.

Mr. Padraig Hannafin

I want to come back to the issue of career guidance. Recently Rehab made a submission on lifelong guidance. We carried out a number of focus groups among some of our students in our national learning network. There needs to be an attempt to instil confidence among some students to realise there are opportunities out there for them despite their disability. A key area where they feel they need support is to have specific career guidance counsellors who are trained with regard to disability. They feel that having to go to a guidance counsellor who does not have any experience of disability and explain very personal intimate elements of their disability was dehumanising and demoralising. If career guidance counsellors were specifically trained on disabilities they could highlight to the students the opportunities that are there. Many of the people we spoke to felt there was no point in progressing to third level education. They wondered what was the point in going through four years of a degree course if there were no opportunities for employment for a person with a disability afterwards.

Deputy David Stanton

I fully agree with these points and they are very important. Guidance counsellors have certain skills but they definitely need upskilling in this area. They need more information and support in respect of how they can assist students with various forms of disability. We are in a time of full employment and one of the big issues we come across is employers contacting us to say they cannot get workers. We have a talent pool of people with disabilities who could quite easily work with supports and more information. The point made earlier about a national information campaign was well made. Perhaps it is something that Rehab could drive or lead on. It has been good at doing so in the past.

Ms Marion Wilkinson

The NDA is finalising some work on the role and delivery of career guidance in schools. Something we did to inform our policy advice was to look at international best practice. We spoke to two groups of young people on their experience of career guidance. One was from WALK in Walkinstown. Mostly they did not have career guidance. It was through their attachment to a disability organisation, in this case WALK, that they were able to have any guidance. As Ms Shakepeare said, the person who took them to WALK was usually a parent, and specifically in the cases of the people we spoke to it was their mother. We also consulted with young adults in the Independent Living Movement. They spoke about disability and career guidance and a simple lack of access. They felt they did not belong in career guidance. The psychometric tests put in front of them were not conceived with the notion of employment in disability and the needs of the individual.

The group we spoke to had all reached a point on their path to have a career, but none of it was through the traditional delivery of career guidance. The gaps in the system were things like being told that transition year was not for them and they should just keep going. This was in a mainstream school. There is a lot of work that needs to be done in this space. Part of it is having an identity that work is for you, and having the skills to see that. There is some really good practice coming out of the Ability projects, about which Ms Shakespeare has spoken, such as goal setting tools and what they mean across different transitions in somebody's life. Those are some of the findings that will be in our work.

Chairman

That concludes our consideration of the matter today. I thank all of the witnesses for assisting the committee in considering this important matter. The committee will consider this matter further as soon as possible.

The joint committee went into private session at 11.31 a.m. and adjourned at 11.40 a.m. until 9.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 1 March 2023.