The Minimum Statutory Employment Target

The minimum statutory employment target for persons with disabilities to be employed in the public sector is currently at 3%.

This will be increasing from a minimum of 3% to a minimum of 4.5% by 2024 and to a minimum of 6% by 2025 as outlined in the recently enacted Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) (Amendment) Act 2022.

The National Disability Authority is consistently advising public bodies that the 3% is a minimum compliance target. We highlight that it’s important for them to focus on exceeding this target and progressing towards reaching the new minimum of 6%.

In 2022, 103 (48.4%) public bodies reported that a minimum of 6% of their employees were persons with disabilities

The NDA produces compliance reports that are sent to the Minister by the 30th of November each year.

Advice and Guidance on Part 5

We provide public bodies with evidence informed advice and guidance on:

  • Creating equitable, diverse and inclusive (EDI) work cultures using a Universal Design approach
  • Supporting employees to feel comfortable in sharing their disability status
  • Increasing the recruitment, retention and career progression of persons with disabilities
  • Data collection

Read our Advice and Guidance on Part 5.

How to Submit an Annual Report

Every year public bodies must submit annual reports to their Departmental Monitoring Committees by the 31st March. These reports must contain updated qualitative and quantitative data from the preceding year, that is, from the 1st of January to the 31st of December of the year before.

Public bodies are required to include qualitative information on measures they have implemented to:

  • Create equitable, diverse and inclusive (EDI) work cultures that promote and support the increased recruitment and retention of people with disabilities
  • Support employees to feel comfortable in sharing their disability status
  • Reach and/or exceed the minimum statutory employment target for the employment of persons with disabilities, which is currently at 3% but will be increased to 6% by 2024

Public bodies must also provide quantitative data for the preceding year in their annual Part 5 returns, including:

  • The number of employees employed
  • The number of employees with disabilities

Under Part 5 of the Disability Act 2005, each Government department has a Departmental Monitoring Committee. Each committee is made up of representatives from the department.

The purpose of each of these committees is to monitor the progress that public bodies, and their respective departments are making to meet their obligations under Part 5 of the Disability Act 2005.

These committees work in consultation with the National Disability Authority to encourage the public bodies under their respective departments to comply with Part 5 of the Disability Act.

Committees are also responsible for checking their public bodies’ reports to make sure they’re accurate and putting them into an annual departmental report that they must submit to us by the 30th of June.

Monitoring committees use these forms to submit their department’s annual reports.