Why did disability agency sign up for the Italian job?
The NDA is also generally acknowledged as the leading State agency on disability issues, providing independent expert advice to Government on policy and practice.
It has since its foundation produced volumes of material advising the Government on employment and training for people with disabilities.
One report, entitled ‘Towards Best Practice in the Provision of Further Education, Employment and Training Services for People with Disabilities in Ireland’, set out to identify key policy documents, legislation and codes of practice underpinning development of employment and training services.
The NDA has also published ‘Disability and Work’ where one of the main findings was that people with disabilities are two-and-a-half times less likely to have a job.
The NDA is therefore widely perceived as the expert advisory body reporting to the Government on employment issues for disabled people.
So it is fair to deduct that it acts as a watchdog in terms of monitoring and promoting access to job opportunities for people with disabilities on behalf of the Government.
The Disability Act 2005 obliges public bodies to take all reasonable measures to support and promote the employment of people with disabilities.
The NDA has consistently reported on these obligations right across the public service and presents reports to the Government in terms of monitoring and enforcement.
It would seem then that the NDA is a statutory watchdog which has jobs and employment in sharp focus at all times.
But does the NDA always practise what it preaches in this regard? Sadly, no.
It is a tragic irony that at a time when this country is beginning to slide into recession, a statutory organisation like the NDA outsourced the printing of its strategy booklet, awarding a contract worth €90,000 to an Italian firm to print 1,703,000 copies.
This bulk order was then to be shipped back to Ireland for distribution. One must ask why a wholly government-funded organisation which has a clearly defined focus and advisory role on job creation would not contract an Irish company to produce its strategy booklet.
While some industries in the private sector are outsourcing to save production costs, one would have thought that a Government-appointed statutory agency like the NDA, which is wholly government-funded, would source an Irish printer for their printing requirements.
It is also not beyond the bounds of possibility that there are printers somewhere on this island who have people with disabilities employed in what could be sustainable jobs — if those jobs were supported.
It behoves the NDA to get its own house in order in the interest of maintaining jobs in indigenous industry at a particularly difficult time for the Irish economy.
Regrettably it would seem the gamekeeper has turned poacher in this instance.
Donie O’Leary
Chairman
Cork Network
People with Disabilities in Ireland
Penrose Quay
Penrose Wharf
Cork
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