Context
The World Health Organisation reports that over one billion people, or approximately 16 per cent of the global population, live with a disability. The European Disability Strategy 2010–2020: a Renewed Commitment to a Barrier-Free Europe, estimated that around 80 million individuals, or one in six people in the European Union (EU), has a disability. The strategy highlights that people with disabilities have a poverty rate 70 per cent higher than the average, mainly due to limited access to employment. Therefore, various strategies and conventions have been developed by public bodies to provide employment opportunities for people with disabilities.
In 2018, a study by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) found that Ireland had the fourth lowest employment rate (36 per cent) among working-age people with disabilities in the EU-28 countries. To address this issue, the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission, the governing body responsible for the administration of the Irish parliament, initiated a review of potential employment avenues for under-represented individuals in 2018. Following extensive research, the Houses of the Oireachtas Service decided to collaborate with private disability service providers Kare and WALK on a pilot basis.
Objectives
The ‘OWL’ (Oireachtas work learning) programme was launched, with the aim of supporting participating civil and public sector bodies in their goal to increase their public service employment target for people with disabilities to 6 per cent by 2024. This programme, designed as an applied learning, development and socialisation initiative for young adults with intellectual disabilities, consists of two parts: (1) the annual OWL Training Programme, which provides trainees with real-world learning experiences in a workplace setting, and (2) the OWL Graduate Programme, which aims to secure meaningful and viable part-time employment for the programme graduates in the civil and public sector, and the private sector.
Implementation
The OWL Programme is managed by the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Team in the Houses of the Oireachtas in collaboration with WALK and Kare. The Openness and Inclusion Steering Group internally reviews the outcomes. Kare and WALK provide two full-time, on-site coordinators, funded by the Health Service Executive, to support trainees and provide job coaches to graduates and departments.
The main programme partners, along with the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform, meet quarterly to discuss issues, improvements, development and expansion of the programme. Networks for employing departments and graduates were established in 2022 to facilitate the sharing of learning and good practice. As of September 2023, 30 trainees have graduated successfully from the programme; 17 of them are now working part-time in permanent positions across 11 government departments and offices in Ireland.