Since 2006, I have been heavily involved in work relating to entrepreneurship for people with disabilities. In 2021, I tailored, designed and delivered a 12-week online course, called Entrepreneurship for People with Disabilities, in conjunction with the Open Doors initiative. Following its success, AIB agreed to fund its delivery for another three years. This is the only tailored start your own business programme in Ireland for people with disabilities.
To analyse the current situation, there are effectively three options for people to put food on the table. The first is employment, but Ireland has the lowest levels of employment for people with disabilities, as the EU Social Forum reported earlier this year. The second is self-employment but, beyond our course, there is no tailored support available or encouragement to start your own business. The third is welfare support, but this leads to the greatest barrier to self-employment, which is the welfare benefit trap.
I make one key point that I would like the committee to remember above and beyond anything else I say today. People with disabilities face additional and distinctive challenges in starting their own business that the general population does not face. Until such time as people accept this truth, there will not be change. When I talk to support agencies and other relevant organisations about tailored support for people with disabilities relating to self-employment, I am given two comments: “We treat everyone the same” and “Our door is open to everyone.”
Treating everyone the same is not the solution because tailored support is required. In addition, the notion of the door being open to everyone only works if the people know the door exists and can access it. Again, I reiterate that people with disabilities face additional and distinctive challenges in starting a business and we must address these.
According to an OECD report from earlier this year on entrepreneurship for people with disabilities:
... people with disabilities, on average, face greater barriers in business start-up and development due to lower levels of education, less work experience, and negative social attitudes. In addition to challenges related to skills and finance gaps, obstacles to self-employment include limited access to entrepreneurship support, disincentives related to interactions between income and income support, and difficulties building networks. Moreover, many people with a disability do not see themselves as having entrepreneurial potential.
The report also highlighted the low levels of awareness of disability issues within entrepreneurship support systems.
For the record, I would like it noted that there are 17,654 people with disabilities who are self-employed and who have employees in this country, according to the 2016 census that was carried out by the Central Statistics Office, CSO. There are 34,461 people with disabilities who are self-employed and have no employees. I secured those data by personally requesting them from the CSO. However, despite the number of people with a disability who are self-employed, there is a great shortage of role models. There is also a significant lack of representation of people with disabilities in the marketing activities of relevant enterprise agencies.
What have been our policy responses? In the Comprehensive Employment Strategy for People with Disabilities 2015-2024, action 2.10 proposed two actions, of which only one has been addressed. In the 2019-21 phase 2 action plan, action 2.7 proposed three actions. Only one of these has been addressed and that was due to the course introduced by TUD, which addressed the mentoring element. To be clear, these two are the only actions in respect of self-employment mentioned in either report. There are some tailored activities provided by some local development companies but it is a postcode lottery and the offerings are inconsistent. In previous work I have done, I found out that people working in the system do not know what is available and so cannot confidently advise clients. I will also make a point regarding our welfare system, which I would argue is a binary system which basically says that a given person either can work or cannot. Research from the UK shows that a binary welfare system is a significant barrier to self-employment and that it needs to be changed to allow for fluctuations in health and ability to work. Overall, a forthcoming OECD country note for Ireland on inclusive entrepreneurship highlights the lack of policy and tailored entrepreneurship initiatives for people with disabilities in Ireland.
What can we do? A recent report from the OECD made a number of policy recommendations. This information is out there; the work has already been done. The report recommends that we build an entrepreneurial identity among people with disabilities by promoting role models. Its next recommendation is that we ensure there are pathways back into income support systems when start-ups are not successful, such as bridging allowances that provide temporary income support. It proposes that we adjust the delivery of entrepreneurship support schemes for the needs and capabilities of individual participants by offering more individualised support such as coaching and co-designing schemes with disability organisations whenever possible. It also recommends that we invest in collecting more data on people with disabilities. This includes measuring the impact of dedicated entrepreneurship schemes.
The 2020 TUD report, Pathway to Entrepreneurship for People with Disabilities in Ireland, advocated that we create an awareness campaign that highlights the benefits of self-employment; build a dedicated website with tailored information; offer dedicated start-your-own-business programmes; provide one-to-one mentoring, which international research highlights as a critical success factor in any programme; present suitable finance options, in respect of which Microfinance Ireland could play a role; and establish a network of entrepreneurs with disabilities, such as the networks that exist in the UK, Canada and other countries. I asked the respondents from the last two years' courses what they believed needed to be changed and the responses overwhelmingly related to changing the welfare support system and the long waiting time to get reinstated when benefits are lost. Particular reference was made to the partial capacity benefit scheme. If one is looking for models from abroad, I suggest the flexi-job model from Denmark, which provides for a wage subsidy that is available to people with disabilities regardless of whether they are working as an employee or as a self-employed person. This might be examined as a model for replication. I am happy to answer any queries or provide any information that the committee may require to advance its work.