Developing an Inclusive Labour Market in Ireland: role of Action Plan for Jobs; Pathways to Work Bríd O’Brien, Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed

Action Plan for Jobs 2016  5 th Action Plan for Jobs  5 Disruptive Reforms  Step-up in enterprise skills supply  530m towards stimulating regional growth  All Government transactions with business online by 2017  National clustering initiative  Doubling intellectual property outputs from enterprise  JobsPlus was a disruptive reform in APJ 2013

Action Plan for Jobs 2016: Key Actions and Impacts  Delivering skills for a growing economy  Driving export led growth to achieve 74,000 agency-supported net new jobs by 2020  Double jobs impact from start-ups by supporting survival and scaling  Increasing innovation towards doubling researchers in enterprise  Finance for growth  Maintaining and improving competitiveness  Increasing labour market participation  Pathways to Work  Stimulating the domestic economy  New Sources of Growth  304 Actions

Action Plan for Jobs 2016 and People with Disabilities  People with disabilities are only half as likely to have a job as the population at large. In October 2015, the Government adopted a ten year Comprehensive Employment Strategy for People with Disabilities ( ) which sets out a strategic approach to promote employment of people with disabilities, with a particular focus on stemming flows into economic inactivity both from school leavers and from those experiencing onset of a disability in the course of working life. The strategy includes an action plan for the first three years with detailed targets and timeframes. (p34)

Action Plan for Jobs 2016 and People with Disabilities  Action 43, (p35)  Establish a pilot three-year Employer Helpline and Disability Support Service, to provide peer information and advice to employers and to share good practice on the employment of people with disabilities, with the aim of increasing disability competence and confidence among employers and promoting increased employment of people with disabilities.  As part of the Action Plan for Jobs and Pathways to Work, the Department of Social Protection, the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, IDA Ireland, Enterprise Ireland and the Local Enterprise Offices (LEO’s) have agreed a protocol that seeks to maximise the recruitment of appropriately skilled persons from the Live Register by enterprise agency client companies. (p97)

Pathways to Work 2016 – 2020: Objectives  Changing from ‘activation in a time of recession’ to ‘activation for a recovery’  Two main objectives:  Continue and consolidate the progress made to date with an initial focus on working with unemployed jobseekers, in particular people who are long-term unemployed; and  Extend the approach of labour market activation to other people who, although not classified as unemployed jobseekers, have the potential and the desire to play an active role in the labour force.

Pathways to Work : Six Strands 1.Enhanced engagement with unemployed people of working age: 15 actions 2.Increase the employment focus of activation programmes and opportunities: 10 actions 3.Making work pay – incentivise the take-up of opportunities: 12 actions 4.Incentivising employers to offer jobs and opportunities to unemployed people: 18 actions 5.Build organisational capability to deliver enhanced services to people who are unemployed: 16 actions 6.Building Workforce Skills: 15 actions

Pathways to Work and People with disabilities  Even at the peak of our Celtic Tiger boom about 150,000 people were in receipt of jobseeker payments. A further 200,000 or so people in the prime of what should have been their working lives (25 – 60) were in receipt of other welfare payments, such as the one-parent family payment (OFP) and disability payments, and were, in effect, excluded from the labour market. (p4)

Pathways to Work and People with disabilities  Under Strand 1, Action 3: Extend and intensify the pro-active engagement approach for people with a disability.  3.1 Review the range of income supports (including in-work supports) for people with disabilities to ensure payments are aligned between schemes and, if appropriate, amend the payment structure to ensure that it supports a return to work for people who wish to do so.  3.2 Expand the use of Intreo Centres to engage with people with disabilities and increase the number of Intreo staff trained in the provision of employment supports to people with disabilities.  3.3 Complete a review of the EmployAbility Service to increase utilisation of the service by people with disabilities and improve the level of employment placements.

Pathways to Work and People with disabilities  3.4 Complete an analysis of existing databases of people in receipt of disability payments who may have a capacity to work and an interest in employment with a view to offering such people an opportunity to engage with the Intreo and/or the EmployAbility service. (p22/23)  Under Strand 3, Action 7.7: Review and report on the findings of the “make work pay” group established as part of the DSP commitments in the CES.  Under Strand 4: we help employers to overcome any reticence they may have in recruiting people with a ‘gap’ on their CV or other barriers to employment (such as a disability); (p30)  Pathways To Work Measures/Metrics and 2016 Targets:  Progressively increase the statutory target of employing people with a disability in the public sector from 3% towards 6% by 2024  2016 Target Performance: 4% (p42)

The INOU calls on the Government  To ensure that participation on activation measures is:  by choice;  meaningful for participants;  supported with well-resourced education and training options, if required;  followed through with progression into decent and sustainable employment.  To support CVS organisations to continue to play their part in the provision of employment, education and training programmes.  To ensure that employment services play their part in supporting programme participants to progress into employment in the wider labour market.  To actively address barriers to employment including discrimination. In the Central Statistics Office Equality Module, August 2015, the second highest rate of discrimination was reported by people who are unemployed, 23%.