SHELTERED WORKSHOPS, where intellectually disabled people earn as little as €7 a week, should be investigated by the Equality Tribunal, a conference was told.
David Begg, the general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu), said there was undoubtedly exploitation going on in the workshops which employ 7,000 people nationally, but are not covered by employment law.
A request was made by Ictu earlier this year to the Equality Tribunal to investigate sheltered workshops and to find out if they discriminate against those who work there on the basis of disability.
Mr Begg told Inclusion Ireland's annual general meeting in Tullamore that the issue was being treated "like a game of tennis" between the two Government departments responsible for sheltered workshops since a code of practice covering such workshops was agreed in 2004.
The code of practice set out regulations for the terms and conditions of people in sheltered workshops. It recommends that those who work there should be regarded as employees and therefore entitled to at least the minimum wage for their labours. To date it has not been implemented.
Mr Begg said the issue was referred to the Equality Authority in February because of the delay by the Department of Health and Children and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and their respective agencies, the HSE and Fás, in implementing the code of practice.
"We have had a letter in March from the Government saying that they have set up a review group and a pilot project for a new model of occupational service using the code of practice," Mr Begg said, "but there is a need for some catalyst to bring it to a head.
"If that discrimination does exist, and we believe it does, it has to be confronted as an issue and rectified. Unless we get that kind of attention, we fear that the issue will just go back and forward between the two departments."
Mr Begg said any investigation should examine, in particular, the claim that the tasks carried out in sheltered workshops amounted to therapeutic services and should not be covered by employment legislation. "Our view is that, if they are in employment, disability simply does not enter into it."
An investigation by The Irish Timesduring the summer found widespread abuse in sheltered workshops. In one case a man doing sheltered work in a hospital as a carer's assistant was not paid at all, while others were paid as little as €5 a week. The average was €25 a week.
Traditionally those engaged in sheltered workshops do jobs such as shrink-wrapping two-for-one offers for supermarkets, putting inserts into mail shots or making cardboard boxes.
Inclusion Ireland presented The Irish Timeswith an award for its coverage of disability issues at Saturday's conference. The award was accepted by the newspaper's Social Affairs Correspondent Carl O'Brien.
