Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 15 April 2015
56. Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection the activation options open to recipients of disability allowance; and if she will provide, in tabular form, the numbers of recipients who availed of each of these options, in each of the past five years. [14157/15]
Amharc ar fhreagra57. Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection the original expenditure estimate and actual outturn on the wage subsidy, the EmployAbility Service, the partial capacity benefit, the workplace equipment/adaptation grant, the employee retention grant, and the disability awareness training schemes, for each of the past five years. [14158/15]
Amharc ar fhreagra58. Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection if she will provide, in tabular form, the number of new people and the total number of persons supported by the wage subsidy, EmployAbility Service, partial capacity benefit, workplace equipment/adaptation grant, and employee retention grant schemes, for each of the past five years. [14159/15]
Amharc ar fhreagra59. Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection if she will provide in tabular form the number of employers availing of the wage subsidy scheme, and the numbers of employees this relates to, as follows: one, five or more, ten or more, 20 or more, 30 or more, 50 or more, or 100 or more. [14160/15]
Amharc ar fhreagra60. Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection the number of employers availing of strand 1 of the wage subsidy scheme only, for each of the past five years. [14161/15]
Amharc ar fhreagra61. Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection the number of full-time equivalent job coaches engaged under the EmployAbility Service programme and its predecessor programme in each of the past five years; and the corresponding number of persons with disabilities who were supported into work. [14162/15]
Amharc ar fhreagraI propose to take Questions Nos. 56 to 61, inclusive, together.
The Government recognises the importance of increasing participation in employment for persons with a disability, and to this end the Department provides a wide range of income and work related supports for people with disabilities, which play an important role in supporting increased participation in the labour force by people with disabilities.
Activation measures apply to jobseekers and are of a mandatory nature, whereas in the case of persons in receipt of disability/illness schemes, mandatory activation measures do not apply. The employment supports in place for people with a disability are of a voluntary nature and are tailored to the person’s capacity to engage with education, training or job-search programmes. These supports include the wage subsidy scheme (WSS), the EmployAbility (supported employment) service, the reasonable accommodation fund for the employment of people with disabilities and the disability awareness training scheme.
In addition, DA recipients are eligible to avail of up-skilling opportunities for example through schemes such as Community Employment and JobBridge. For those who are in receipt of invalidity pension or illness benefit (for at least six months) and who have some capacity for work, they can apply for the partial capacity benefit (PCB) scheme.
Furthermore, the INTREO service is available to any person with a disability who wishes to avail of the service. People with disabilities may also be eligible to avail of wider social welfare schemes such as the Back to Education Allowance and the Back to Work Enterprise Allowance.
The data sought by the Deputy in the various questions, where available, are set out in the following tables with the latest available figures.
Not all of the data requested are specifically collated by the Department – in relation to the number of job coaches employed under the EmployAbility service, these are employed by independent companies contracted to provide the service which is supporting almost 3,000 people.
Data in respect of the workplace equipment adaptation grant scheme, the employee retention grant scheme and the disability awareness training scheme for 2010 and 2011 are not available. These three grants are demand led schemes that form part of the reasonable accommodation fund for the employment of people with disabilities. Given the small size of each of these grants, a separate estimate for each of these schemes is not set out in the revised estimates volume and only actual expenditure is recorded. Furthermore, information on the number of people that benefitted from these grants is not collated.
Table 1: Estimated Budgetary expenditure (€ million): Wage Subsidy Scheme (WSS), EmployAbility, PCB
|
Year |
Wage subsidy scheme |
EmployAbility |
Partial capacity benefit* |
|
2010 |
11.61 |
8.98 |
0 |
|
2011 |
11.25 |
8.84 |
0 |
|
2012 |
10.85 |
8.84 |
13.10 |
|
2013 |
10.85 |
8.84 |
8.50 |
|
2014 |
10.85 |
9.24 |
12.67 |
*Partial Capacity Benefit was introduced in February, 2012
Table 2: Actual expenditure (€ million): WSS, EmployAbility, PCB
|
Year |
Wage subsidy scheme |
EmployAbility |
Partial capacity benefit* |
|
2010 |
10.87 |
8.5 |
0 |
|
2011 |
10.06 |
8.4 |
0 |
|
2012 |
10.57 |
8.10 |
2.11 |
|
2013 |
11.04 |
8.71 |
7.37 |
|
2014 |
12.59 |
8.43 |
9.97 |
*Partial Capacity Benefit was introduced in February, 2012
Table 3: Number of participants: WSS, EmployAbility, PCB
|
Year |
Wage subsidy scheme |
EmployAbility |
Partial capacity benefit* |
|
2010 |
833 |
2,550 |
0 |
|
2011 |
916 |
2,903 |
0 |
|
2012 |
1,006 |
2,762 |
733 |
|
2013 |
1,159 |
2,872 |
1,234 |
|
2014 |
1,548 |
2,936 |
1,432 |
*Partial Capacity Benefit was introduced in February, 2012
Table 4: Number of employers, WSS
|
Year |
Total No. of Employers |
No. of Employers – Strand 1 |
|
2010 |
530 |
499 |
|
2011 |
577 |
525 |
|
2012 |
663 |
608 |
|
2013 |
703 |
635 |
|
2014 |
1,022 |
881 |
Table 5: Distribution of WSS employers by number of WSS employees (Position as at mid-2013)
|
No. of Employees |
No. of Employers |
|
1 |
536 |
|
2 – 4 |
107 |
|
5 – 9 |
10 |
|
10 + |
3 |
Table 6: Expenditure: Other Grants/Schemes
|
Year |
Employee retention grant scheme |
Workplace equipment adaptation grant scheme |
Disability Awareness Training Scheme |
|
2012 |
€4,320 |
€71,176 |
€2,430 |
|
2013 |
€0 |
€81,724 |
€834 |
|
2014 |
€0 |
€61,776 |
€3,760 |
