Taoiseach launches expansion of Wage Subsidy Scheme
The Wage Subsidy Scheme gives employers financial support to encourage them to hire people with disabilities.
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Employers can get a subsidy of between €6.30-€9.45 per hour, depending on the number of workers employed under the scheme.
The support can help cover the cost of adapting a role for the employee.
Under measures announced by Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Social Protection Minister Dara Calleary, the scheme is to be extended to the community and voluntary sector as well as the commercial state-sponsored sector.
In addition, there will be a reduction in the minimum required hours to avail of the subsidy – down from 21 to 15 hours.
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The scheme has also been expanded beyond recruitment to include retention of people returning to work on Partial Capacity Benefit.
The subsidy rate is to be reviewed at least every three years.
Disability Minister Norma Foley and junior minister Hildegarde Naughton also addressed a launch event at Chartered Accountants House in Dublin on Wednesday.
Mr Martin said: 'Supports like this play not only a critical role in closing the employment gap for people with disabilities, reducing poverty and supporting families and communities, but also for employers in bringing new ideas, skills and knowledge to their businesses.
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'I am committed to advancing the rights and improving the lives of people with disabilities including through removing barriers to employment.
'Supports such as this revised Wage Subsidy Scheme recognise that the perspective, talents, and contributions of people with disabilities across society add immeasurably to the quality, the richness and the diversity of all our lives.'
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Germany should consider Israel sanctions, senior lawmaker says after trip
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The Guardian
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Dame Stella Rimington obituary
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Soon after she retired, she was embroiled in a furious row with her former Whitehall colleagues over her decision to write her memoirs. 'It was quite upsetting,' she said, 'because suddenly you go from being an insider to being an outsider and that's quite a shock.' But, she added: 'I've never been one to retreat at the first whiff of gunshot.' Her most controversial role as she rose up the ranks of MI5 was responsibility for countering 'subversion'. She was active during the miners' strike during the mid-1980s, and justified spying on the leadership of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) on the grounds that Margaret Thatcher regarded it as 'the enemy within'. She said: 'If the strike is led by people who say they are trying to bring down the government, our role [is] to assess [them].' 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Looking back, she said: 'I suppose I'd lived with terrorist events for a good part of my working life and this was, as far as I was concerned, another one.' Asked what impact the 2003 invasion of Iraq had on the terrorist threat, she replied: 'Well, I think all one can do is look at what those people who've been arrested or have left suicide videos say about their motivation. And most of them, as far as I'm aware, say that the war in Iraq played a significant part in persuading them that this is the right course of action to take.' She was born Stella Whitehouse in south London; her father was a draughtsman, her mother a midwife and nurse. Her father had fought at Passchendaele in the first world war. 'He was never able to relax after that, a very uneasy soul, difficult to get close to,' she recalled. He worked in the steel industry in Barrow and then in the Derbyshire-Nottinghamshire borders. 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28 minutes ago
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Does Whitehall really have nothing better to do than spend our money on ‘trans listening circles'?
It's possible they'll be too busy attending events like the 'Invisible Women' presentation that took place there at 10.30am on a weekday, according to those Freedom of Information documents. (And I'm curious to know which particular brand of rubbish was being peddled here? Also, was it hosted by invisible women, attended by these ghostly apparitions – or both?). Then, with that unmissable 'Race equality allyship working group catch-up' at 4pm, you could see how it might be hard to get much work done in between. 'Allyship'. That's some premium-level balderdash we're subsidising. It's just as well there's no direct nuclear threat from Vladimir Putin or indeed a pressing issue with soaring energy bills in the UK, because over at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, employees may have been too immersed in a 'listening circle for trans colleagues and allies' at 11am on May 7 to be thinking about, you know, energy cost and security. They'll get around to reviewing the key defence infrastructure around our undersea gas pipelines once they've completed their more important work: promoting understanding, empathy and inclusivity in the workplace. While we're on inclusivity (and when are we not?), anyone wondering why the Department for Transport took so long to produce its recent evaluation of HS1 may have their answer. With their nine-to-fives as jam-packed with LGBT events as they appear to be, it's astonishing the department managed to publish the report at all. And should we really be expecting them to get stuck down in the weeds with the UK's only operational purpose-built high-speed line, when they could be having 'conversations on lesbian identity'? Is it not, similarly, asking a little too much of the Department for Education to prioritise issues such as persistent teacher shortages, funding gaps and rising pupil absenteeism over yet more 'sapphic sounds' events? Someone needs to explain the overwhelming need for musical sapphism in Whitehall's day-to-day life. I think I speak for all of us when I say: I'm confused. Elliot Keck, head of campaigns at the TaxPayers' Alliance, is not amused: 'Taxpayers are sick of seeing staff time wasted on pointless meetings and irrelevant events, none of which benefits the Britons paying for them.' It's hard to remember a time when the government was faced with more crises than it is today, and in almost every policy area, Keck points out, 'with illegal immigration skyrocketing, energy bills through the roof and the economy in the doldrums. 'Yet pusillanimous pen pushers are devoting huge amounts of their time to ignoring these issues and focusing on their own pet projects. Ministers need to take on The Blob and demand an unconditional end to events and meetings during working hours.' The Blob is currently away from its desk celebrating 'Pansexual Visibility Day'. But it will get back to ministers in due course.
