Press release
Celebrating International Day of Persons with Disabilities
From Department of Social Protection
Published on
Last updated on
From Department of Social Protection
Published on
Last updated on
On this International Day of Persons with Disabilities, we want to support even more people with disabilities into employment. The Department of Social Protection offers a wide range of employment supports to help people with disabilities find, get and keep a job and remove or reduce barriers in the workplace.
There are 23 EmployAbility organisations around the country to offer people with disabilities support to get and keep a job. Personal advisors offer job-matching services and provide advice and information on the Department’s employment supports, which are outlined below.
If you are on Disability Allowance or Blind Pension, you can take up employment and may continue to receive your income support. You can currently earn up to €165 and keep your payment in full or earn up to €505.10 and keep a small portion of your payment and your secondary benefits.
If you receive Invalidity Pension or Illness Benefit, you can transfer to Partial Capacity Benefit to enter or return to employment. The payment rate is based on your restriction in work capacity, meaning there is no limit to how much you can earn.
Work and Access is a new set of employment supports for people with disabilities and employers to help remove or reduce barriers in the workplace. The scheme provides funding for work coaches, communication support and personal readers, and grants of up to €12,000 for assistive equipment and technology or €25,000 for adaptations to business premises. Supports are available for the business and remote-working premises.
The WorkAbility programme funds 56 organisations to run local, regional and national projects to provide pathways into employment for people with disabilities. The programme aims to support up to 13,000 disabled people over its lifetime (2024 to 2028) through education, training, skills development and in-work supports.
The Work Placement Experience Programme gives unemployed people on Disability Allowance and Blind Pension the opportunity to train, upskill or gain work experience. The placement must be for 30 hours a week for six months. Participants can keep their payment and secondary benefits in full and receive an additional €103 each week.
The Department funds AHEAD to deliver the Willing Able Mentoring (WAM) programme and the GetAHEAD programme to support graduates with disabiltiies.
WAM is a work placement programme to help graduates with disabilities access the labour market and enhances employers’ ability to integrate disability into the mainstream workplace. The Civil Service launched its pilot Pathway to Permanency in 2022. It was a resounding success with 89% of WAM Civil Service graduates securing a permanent Executive Officer position in the Civil Service.
GetAHEAD is a network of students and graduates with disabilities to help them transition from third-level education to full-time employment. It offers valuable resources and training events to upskill graduates in areas such as interview preparation, CV writing, job seeking, grants and legal entitlements.
The Wage Subsidy Scheme aims to encourage private sector employers to hire people with a disability through a subsidy. Employers can get a subsidy between €6.30 to €9.45 per hour depending on how many people they hire through the scheme. A full review of the scheme was published last August Review Report.
An additional €3.7 million has been allocated to expand and improve the scheme. In April 2024, the minimum required hours for the scheme were reduced from 21 hours to 15 hours to make it more accessible and flexible to people with disabilities. Additional changes following the review will be implemented in January 2025, including expanding the scheme to people who return to work on Partial Capacity Benefit and to employers in the community, voluntary and commercial state-sponsored sectors.
JobsPlus also aims to incentivise employers to employ people on Disability Allowance or Blind Pension. Employers can receive grants of between €7,500 to €10,000 over 18 months.