Disability allowance is a weekly payment made in 2003 to over 67,000 people with a disability in 2003 at a cost of over €460 million. Recipients must be aged 16 years or over and under age 66 years. The disability must be expected to last for at least one year and the allowance is subject to both medical suitability and a means test.
A pilot project to support people with disabilities will commence in early 2005 based in the Midlands Health Board area — counties Longford, Westmeath, Offaly and Laois — of the country to address the important issue of how persons in receipt of this payment might be better assisted into employment. The pilot project is being undertaken in association with FÁS and the Midland Health Board and marks an important step in exploring a more integrated employment support approach for people with disabilities.
The project will facilitate localised responses to the identified needs of those considered suitable for the project based on an inter-agency approach. It will initially deal with existing customers of disability allowance between 18 and 25 years of age and this phase is expected to take six months to complete. Based on the initial outcomes of phase 1, phase 2, dealing with new entrants to the scheme, will follow for a further six month period. A range of existing employment supports are available to people with disabilities and these are provided on a multi-agency basis. These functions have, thus far, generally operated independently of each other. The initiative will pilot a more co-ordinated support approach for people with disabilities.
Based on an analysis undertaken by my Department, there are some 6,467 persons between 16 and 25 years of age who are in receipt of disability allowance who are not regarded as having disabilities which are profound in nature. The initial target group will be drawn from this cohort.
The specific objectives of the project are to: provide an integrated point of contact for persons with disabilities and a multi-agency examination of their training and employment support potential; facilitate participation in training and employment supports by addressing the needs of groups with high risks of poverty, that is, people with disabilities; reduce social welfare dependency and create economic independence for individuals with disabilities; examine the nature and extent of existing supports used by various providers to assist people with disabilities to progress to employment or other opportunities; analyse and benchmark the outcomes of the pilot against previous approaches. The pilot will allow for better use of existing training-employment supports services and schemes that are provided by the relevant agencies concerned.
The pilot and its follow up will play an important role in the development of policy for people with disabilities, particularly in reaching their full potential through employment.