Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 27 May 2021
58. Deputy James Lawless asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the progress made under the Comprehensive Employment Strategy for People with Disabilities 2015-2024; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28741/21]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe Comprehensive Employment Strategy for People with Disabilities 2015-2024 (CES) is the primary disability employment policy initiative in Ireland. It is a cross-government approach, bringing together actions by Government Departments and Agencies to address the barriers and challenges to employment of persons with disabilities. The CES’s strategic priorities are to build skills, capacity and independence, to provide bridges and supports into work, to make work pay, to promote job retention and re-entry to work, to provide co-ordinated and seamless supports and to engage employers.
Implementation of the Strategy is undertaken through agreed action plans and is monitored by an Implementation Group with an independent chairperson, Mr Fergus Finlay. Currently the group is monitoring the CES Phase Two Action Plan which covers the period 2019 – 2021. Development of a final Action Plan for the period 2022 – 2024 will soon take place.
As part of the monitoring by the Implementation Group, the Independent Chair produces an annual report on progress. In addition, the National Disability Authority produces an annual independent assessment of progress of the CES.
Each Department is responsible for delivering and implementing the actions assigned to it and for reporting on those the CES Implementation Group.
Key areas of recent progress under the strategy include the ongoing implementation of specific recommendations arising from the Make Work Pay Report, the production of an online training programme to support employers in becoming “disability confident and the production by the Public Appointment Service of a Guide to Promoting Inclusive Employment. In addition CES monitoring has highlighted reported increases in the participation by students with physical or mobility disabilities in higher education, the increased uptake in mainstream education and training options among young people with disabilities and the ongoing provision by HSE Mental Health teams of Individual Placements and Support (IPS) to individuals.
My own Department has a coordination function and provides secretariat to the Implementation Group. In addition, my Department has responsibility for a number of specific actions under the CES. Initiatives progressed by Department under the current CES Action Plan include the funding and establishment of a disability information service for employers run by the Open Doors Initiative. This service ‘Employers for Change: A Disability Information Service’ provides expert peer source of advice and information on employing staff with disabilities, with a view to enhancing the confidence and competence of individual employers to employ, manage and retain staff with disabilities.
