From Department of Social Protection
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The Minister for Social Protection, Heather Humphreys, TD, has today announced that she is making up to €5 million available this year under the Dormant Accounts Action Plan 2021 to support initiatives of voluntary and community groups that will focus exclusively on improving employment outcomes for people with disabilities.
To avail of the funding, projects must show how they will support people with disabilities to access employment, improve their career progression opportunities “in work” and improve their employment outcomes through education and training which will contribute to participants being “work ready”.
Projects designed to support potential employers to provide employment for people with a disability will also be considered.
Groups can apply for funding of up to €200,000 under this measure.
Applications are welcome from organisations who can demonstrate that they are “supporting or providing services to People with a Disability” as the significant part of their main purpose and mandate, while having a proven track record of successfully working with People with a Disability.
Applications which demonstrate strong partnership principles in order to maximise the impact of the project are particularly encouraged. For example, projects which demonstrate collaboration between potential employers, training and education services. In any applications provided by such a consortium, the lead applicant must always be the organisation with expertise in working with People with Disabilities.
Minister Humphreys commented:
“I am delighted on the closing day of the 2021 Social Inclusion Forum to announce this new €5 million Fund which is aimed at supporting the employment of people with disabilities. This is one of a number of measures that my Department is now providing to support the employment prospects of people with disabilities.
“The past twelve months have been very challenging for so many people including people with disabilities.
“We need to make every effort to ensure that opportunities are given to people with disabilities to gain employment as this is one of the key routes towards social inclusion.
“This measure will help to fund initiatives, which are intended to assist people with disabilities gain skills, become employable and reach their full potential.
“As Minister for Social Protection I have seen first-hand what people with disabilities can achieve when they are included in a work environment and the positive impact that this in turn has on them and their co-workers.
“The new funding being provided by my Department will give an opportunity to many voluntary and community groups to consider and develop a number of initiatives that will focus on people with disabilities living in our local communities.”
Pobal is managing the process on behalf of the Department. With effect from Monday, 19th April, applicants will be able to download the application form and guidelines from the website www.pobal.ie. Voluntary and community groups have until 6th May to make an application.
It is expected that the successful initiatives will commence in September 2021 and will run until December 2022.
ENDS
Pobal is a not-for-profit intermediary organisation that manages various funding programmes on behalf of the Irish Government and the EU.
The Dormant Accounts Acts 2001-2012, together with the Unclaimed Life Assurance Policies Act 2003, provide a framework for the administration of unclaimed accounts in credit institutions (i.e. banks, building societies and An Post) and unclaimed life assurance policies in insurance undertakings.
The main purpose of the legislation is to reunite account or policy holders with their funds in credit institutions or insurance undertakings and in this regard, these bodies are required to take steps to identify and contact the owners of dormant accounts and unclaimed life assurance policies.
In order to utilise the unused funds in dormant accounts and unclaimed policies to best use, the legislation also introduced a scheme for the disbursement of funds that are unlikely to be reclaimed from dormant accounts and unclaimed policies for the purposes of measures to assist: