RESEARCH on the attitudes of employers and trade union shop stewards to disability issues begins this month.
The TRUST project, funded by the EU's Horizon programme, will also look at the level of accessibility to workplaces for disabled people and the employment opportunities available to them.
Mr Eddie Glackin, chief executive of the Irish Trade Union Trust, which sponsors TRUST, said the research would be completed by the autumn and "will enable employers and unions jointly to develop a practical and proactive approach to the employment of people with disability".
He announced the research yesterday at a workshop in Navan, Co Meath. The seminar, attended by about 40 employers, shop stewards, and those with disabilities, explored obstacles to employment.
The research programme follows a hard hitting report published by the Commission on the Status of People with Disability. That report, A Strategy for Equality, made 402 recommendations including some radical changes to Government policy on disability. The Commission was established by the Minister for Equality and Law Reform, Mr Taylor, and a majority of its members had a disability or a family member with a disability.
Mr Glackin said the workshops identified "many of the fears and negative attitudes felt by employers and shop stewards towards disabled workers, and helped to confront these attitudes. For the nondisabled people attending the workshops, this experience proved to be a real eye opener," he said.
"The workshops have shown that there is a need to provide more information to employers about the range of financial supports which are available for employing disabled people."