EIGHTY per cent of people with disabilities in Ireland are unemployed, a seminar on disability and employment was told in Dublin yesterday.
Organised by the National Rehabilitation Board, the seminar discussed the different employment systems and policies for people with disabilities in Ireland and the Netherlands.
Just 8,000 people with disabilities are placed in sheltered workshops in Ireland, the seminar heard, while the Netherlands, with five times Ireland's population, has over 80,000 people in such workshops.
The Dutch Minister for Social Affairs and Employment, Mr Rob Krug, said their system of sheltered employment was "one of the most extensive programmes of its kind in Europe".
He said 86,000 people availed of the scheme, and are employed in about loo companies run by municipal authorities. The Dutch government gives financial support to these companies.
The chief executive of Gandon Enterprises, Ms Gina Quinn, said her company employed 300 people, 180 of whom have disabilities. Up to recently, she said, there had been no serious response from the Government to the problem of unemployment among people with disabilities.
She said the Government was now evaluating a pilot programme for the employment of people with disabilities. If the necessary subsidies became available when this evaluation was complete, she believed her company could create 2,000 jobs over a 10 year period.