Employment Schemes
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-18
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Dara Calleary (FF), Mayo

I completely agree with the Deputy. Last year, we ran an overall information campaign about the wage subsidy scheme. This involved normal advertising. It led to a very small increase. We met on this issue this week. I intend to target chambers of commerce, which have a very direct connection to local businesses. Many national businesses support and use the programme. I want to see more local businesses involved because local visibility is important. I will certainly expand our outreach to include family resource centres. If any Deputy would like to suggest organisations that have a local reach and that can get us into local businesses, I am more than happy to work with them. We will be engaging. We are setting up meetings with local business organisations. We deal with the employer organisations on this matter. I want to involve organisations that have more local connections to employers and that can engage with them. I acknowledge the many local employers who do excellent work on this. As a Department, we will be running a themed week in October, work and skills week. This will look at the employment vacancies that are available and matching those with disabilities to those vacancies. Any employer that does not engage with the wage subsidy scheme is missing out on a really talented bunch of people.

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Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:51+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-18