Employment Support Services
Dail Éireann — 2025-10-16
============================================================

Noel Grealish (IND), Galway West

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Teachta. I am responding on behalf of the Minister, Deputy Calleary, who cannot be here. The wage subsidy scheme is a key disability employment support. It aims to encourage employers to offer substantial and sustainable employment to disabled people through a subsidy. As of September 2025, there were 1,538 employers availing of the wage subsidy scheme and 2,445 employees supported through the scheme. Expenditure on the scheme was €23.46 million in 2025. Last year, the Department of Social Protection published a review of the wage subsidy scheme following a public consultation. The review made six recommendations and an additional €3.7 million has been allocated to implement the recommendations. In April 2024, the minimum number of hours for the scheme was reduced from 21 to 15. The scheme now includes employers in the community and voluntary sectors, as well as employers who employ certain people in receipt of the partial capacity benefit. One recommendation was to promote and increase awareness of the scheme to encourage a greater uptake among employers. In June of this year, the Minister launched the reformed scheme together with the Taoiseach, the Minister, Deputy Foley, and Minister of State, Deputy Naughton. Following that, a media campaign was launched to raise awareness of this beneficial scheme. It ran for six weeks. It is hoped that the implementation of the recommendations of the review will result in an expansion of the scheme. The review also recommended that the subsidy rate be reviewed every three years.
We reviewed the rate in the context of budget 2026 and provided an increase in the base rate of the wage subsidy from €6.30 to €7.50. This is an increase of over 19%. Almost 80% of employees are subsidised at the base rate. Previously, there were six rates of subsidy depending on the number employed under the scheme. The scheme was considered highly complex, difficult to communicate to employers and difficult to administer. It was decided to simplify it into three bands instead of six. All subsidy rates were increased in the budget. Employers with up to six employees under the scheme are to be paid the base rate of €7.50 per employee per hour from April 2026. Employers with seven to 16 employees are to be paid €8.50. Employers with 17 employees and more are to be paid €10 per employee. An employer who employs 25 or more active employees with a disability on the wage subsidy scheme is eligible for a grant towards the employment of an employment assistance officer. This role is to support and assist the relevant employees with their needs in employment. The grant is for €30,000 per year. There is a limit of five employment assistance officer positions in any one company. Seven companies received this funding. Based on the recent figures, 1,463 employers will receive the base rate, 18 will receive the middle rate and seven will receive the top rate.
Budget 2026 has provided for a further expansion to people who acquire a disability while in employment and to those who transfer from the invalidity pension to the partial capacity benefit. The programme for Government commits to further review the minimum hours requirement under the wage subsidy scheme for disabled people and to examine an increase to the payment rate. These commitments are also reflected in the human rights strategy for disabled people, which the Government published recently.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-10-16/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:14+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-10-16