Ireland’s comprehensive Employment Strategy for People with Disabilities

that these provisions do not apply to the Defence Forces, the Garda Síochána or prison officers of a prison.

This legislative framework is supplemented by policy initiatives such as the;

National Disability Inclusion Strategy 2017-2021

The National Disability Inclusion Strategy (NDIS) which also plays a role in the sphere of work for disabled persons.

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The NDIS 2017-2021 sets out key actions for each theme and objective and gives the timeframe for delivery by the relevant government department. The NDISSG monitors the implementation of the NDIS. The 4

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objective of the NDIS is “employment”. In the section entitled “People with disabilities have the opportunity to work and have a career”, the NDIS makes the affirmation that Comprehensive Employment Strategy, discussed subsequently will be fully implemented by the Department of Justice and Equality and all departments and relevant agencies. Jobseekers with disabilities will also be supported through trainings and employment opportunities provided by programmes such as Employability Service, the Wage Subsidy Scheme, the Reasonable Accommodation Fund. As for the public sector employment of person with disabilities, NDIS seeks to increase it from 3% to 6% by 2024.

II. Ireland’s Comprehensive Employment Strategy for People with Disabilities

This section will seek to explain the Comprehensive Employment Strategy for People with Disabilities 2015-2024 (herein “the Strategy”).

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It consists of three three-year plans; the second of these plans ends in 2021. This Strategy was created by a group of senior officials from Government Departments and the National Disability Authority (NDA). The latter received forty seven written submissions from disability organisations, social partners, and individuals. It also conducted a consultation session with various disability organisations.

The goal of the Strategy can be summarised by its six priorities, which are to:

1. Build skills, capability and interdependence, 2. Provide bridges and supports into work,

295 National Disability Inclusion Strategy | (2017 -2021). 296 Comprehensive Employment Strategy for People with Disabilities 2015-2024.

3. Make work pay, 4. Promote job retention and re-entry to work, 5. Provide co-ordinated and seamless support, and 6. Engage employers.

As suggested by its title, the Strategy seeks to be comprehensive, thus it includes people with physical, sensory, intellectual or mental health disabilities, those who acquire a disability, and people with autism. It seeks to cover the full spectrum of abilities and degrees of impairment. In respect of employment issues, it covers a range of factors of employment such as education, transportation, welfare policy, activation, and direct supports. It is currently the most significant piece of policy in the area of employment for people with disabilities in Ireland.

Legislative context and the need for the Strategy In terms of the factual context leading to this Strategy, the 2011 census showed that only 33% of people with disabilities of working age are in work, compared to 66% of non-disabled people; this is low in international terms, even allowing for intercultural differences in reporting disabilities.

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There are especially low employment rates for people with intellectual disabilities or mental health difficulties. However, this is not due to a lack of desire to work; almost two-thirds of younger people and over one third of all people with disabilities expressed an interest in working.

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This highlights the need for a comprehensive strategy to address the systemic barriers to employment faced by people with disabilities who wish to work.

Issues in employment for people with disabilities

The National Disability Survey 2006 observed that the main perceived barriers to employment are, in order: flexible work arrangements (45%), modified tasks (29%), wage subsidy (24%), transport/parking (17%), accessible buildings (13%), human support (7%), and assistive technology or physical adjustments (4%).

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On the employers’ side, perceived obstacles to hiring employees with disabilities were illuminated by a 2007 FÁS employer study. It showed that employers who had never considered hiring a person with a disability reported that the opportunity never arose (22%) or they had never had a disabled candidate apply (16%). Other companies cited employing lack

297 Comprehensive Employment Strategy for People with Disabilities (2015-2024). 298 National Disability Survey 2006, vol 2. 299 National Disability Survey 2006, Table 7.29.

of company suitability for people with disabilities (18%), the work was specialised (7%), the work was too physical (5%), the premises were unsuitable (4%) or perceived health and safety reasons prevented it (2%).

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It has additionally been stressed that there exist specific barriers for different forms of disability. Darran Brennan, commenting on the experiences of those with invisible diabilities, stated that “it would be better to focus on efforts on changing cultural and societal understanding of invisible disabilities in the workplace”.301 This illustrates the more complex social attitudes which can impact experiences of employment and accessing employment for those with disabilities.

Priorities and aims of the Strategy

The afore-mentioned priorities of the strategy largely derive from these previous listed issues. Collectively, they demonstrate more general aims of the strategy which may be broken down as follows:

• Stemming the flow into joblessness and pathways for entry or re-entry into work o The flow of joblessness is most likely when leaving the education system, and pathways for re-entry are needed when acquiring a disability later in life. Thus, the strategy prioritizes designing early school programs for successful transitions into post-school options; it also prioritizes lowering barriers for reentry into work in later life. • Pursue supported employment systems o These can be described as a “place, train, and maintain model”. This describes a job seeking system where an individual receives support from a job coach who assesses the individuals’ needs, finds an appropriate workplace, and ensures their successful transition into work. This calls for a cohesive national strategy, as research shows supported employment schemes valuably assist people with disabilities to get and keep jobs; this requires steady links with employers.

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300 Comprehensive Employment Strategy for People with Disabilities (2015-2024) 39. 301 Darran Brennan, ‘Rights and Protections for Employees with Invisible Disabilities’ [2021] 18(3) Irish Employment Law Journal 59. 302 Purvis and ors, ‘2011 Early Implementation and 2012 Steady State Waves of the research’ (London, 2013) DWP Research Report 846.

An example of this program is the Individual Placement with Support model which was developed in the mental health area.

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• Implementation of Universal Design. o This is the process of planning buildings, education, transportation, and other services which are universally accessible, including people with disabilities. Although there is detailed design guidance in existence for essentially all aspects of building design issued by the NDA, accessible transportation still demonstrates room for improvement, particularly in rural parts of the country.

Progress as of 2020

Review of the progress of this Strategy seeks to be similarly comprehensive. The process mainly consists of an annual review by the National Disability Strategy Implementation Group of overall progress. This Implementation Group consists of a senior officials group on disability, the NDA, and the Disability Stakeholder Group. There are also annual reviews of Departmental progress by a Disability Consultative Committee composed of department officials, representation from the Disability Stakeholders Group, the NDA, and other disability representatives. This process is supplemented by periodic advice papers from the NDA.

The most recently published review of the Strategy at the end of year 2020 noted the significant impact of COVID-19 on people with disabilities, particularly in the area of employment. An advice paper submitted by the National Disability Authority to an Oireachtas special COVID19 committee noted that “persons with disabilities may be particularly at risk of losing their job due to the higher proportion of persons with disabilities in lower paid jobs such as retail, catering, and hospitality compared to the general population”.

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At the same time, remote work has benefited some persons with disabilities because it lowers barriers including transportation, flexibility of hours, and workspace accommodation. In fact, the Future Jobs Ireland 2019 and the National Remote Working Strategy both emphasize remote working’s opportunity for workforce inclusion for some persons with disabilities. In terms of the national pandemic recovery strategy, the NDA warned that there is risk for overlap between the Strategy and the pandemic recovery; further Strategy plans must take care to remain efficient.

303 Miles Rinaldi and ors, ‘Individual placement and support: from research to practice’ (2008) Advances in Psychiatric Treatment 14, 50-60. 304 National Disability Authority, Submission to the Oireachtas Special Committee on Covid-19 Response on the impact of COVID-19 on persons with disabilities and the disability sector (June 2020) 21.

The successes of the Strategy to date can be described as many small steps towards the goal. For example, the Make Work Pay Report from 2017 raised the maximum income which qualifies for full disability allowance. This means people who claim this allowance can earn more from their job without fearing the loss of their benefits. This resulted in a modest increase in employment by people on this allowance. This shows that, given the rational structural incentives, people on welfare payments are interested in employment.

Additionally, there have been steps towards addressing the weak bridge between education and post-school options; the NCSE has conducted research on this transition and SOLAS has produced “A Conceptual Framework of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) for the Irish Further Education and Training Sector”.

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As a result, there has been an increase of 4,000 learners, to a total of 13,098, enrolled in further education from 2018 to 2019. More specifically, there has been an 88% increase by students with physical or mobility disabilities, 53% with vision impairment, and 40% who are hard of hearing.

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Furthermore, there have been four relatively small programs created to encourage employer involvement in these efforts. Lastly, the National Transport Authority have made improvements in public transportation for accessibility, including 16% of vehicles being made wheelchair accessible, compared to 4% in 2014. Additionally, six pilot community car schemes have been approved in Cork, Kerry (2x), Offaly, Longford, and Mayo.

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Areas for improvement

All of these improvements are positive but certainly not enough. This is evident as the employment rate for people with disabilities has only risen 3% since the Strategy commenced.

308 This is the fourth lowest employment rate of its kind in Europe.

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The study, conducted by the NDA, re-emphasized Ireland’s failure to provide appropriate education and

305 Mary Quirke and Patricia Mccarthy, ‘A Conceptual Framework of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) for the Irish Further Education and Training Sector’ (2020) SOLAS. 306 Comprehensive Employment Strategy NDA Year End Assessment 2020 11. 307 Comprehensive Employment Strategy NDA Year End Assessment 2020 12. 308 ‘Identification of Skills Gaps Among Persons With Disabilities And Their Employment Prospects’ (Dublin, 2021) Economic & Social Research Institute. 309 ‘Identification of Skills Gaps Among Persons With Disabilities And Their Employment Prospects’ (Dublin, 2021) Economic & Social Research Institute.

post-education transition for people with disabilities. As such, the 2020 NDA report on the Strategy called for improvements in this area.

Specifically, the 2020 report called upon the Government to address the lack of progress in Career Guidance for learners in school settings. Most people with disabilities do not progress past junior cycle.

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This cannot be attributed to the proportion of people with learning or intellectual disabilities, although this group experiences particularly low educational outcomes.

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This represents a significant failure in the overall preparedness by the education system of this group for employment, which Ireland seeks to address with the Strategy. It has not yet effectively done so.

In the meantime, the NDA report encourages the Further Education and Training (FET) sector to be a more accessible pathway to mainstream employment. One barrier is that while 49.2% of learners in FET have an education level of lower secondary or below, available funding only covers post leaving certificate courses; this further marginalizes people with disabilities who face an accessibility issues within the secondary school system. Furthermore, the NDA recommends including a target for persons with disabilities accessing apprenticeships and other FET options. It also recommends that there be a Disability Consultative Committee established within the national authority responsible for FET. Lastly, it highlights the opportunity to construct a realistic bridge between FET and higher education for people with disabilities. Overall, FET presents an accessible route to employment for people with disabilities while the mainstream education system undergoes reforms.

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Thus, it should adopt an active role in providing learning and training for people with disabilities in order to prepare them for a job.

Furthermore, the report illuminates the fact that although there has been a “national programme for employment supports for persons with disabilities” that has been approved for a few years, it has not yet been set into motion. This is similar to the “early engagement process”, which is a program meant to invite young people to engage with public employment service. This plan

310 ‘Identification of Skills Gaps Among Persons With Disabilities And Their Employment Prospects’ (Dublin, 2021) Economic & Social Research Institute. 311 ‘Identification of Skills Gaps Among Persons With Disabilities And Their Employment Prospects’ (Dublin, 2021) Economic & Social Research Institute. 312 National Disability Authority, ‘A qualitative study of how well young people with disabilities are prepared for life after school’ (June 2017).