CAN YOU IMAGINE a law that prevents a certain part of society following a career path of their own choosing? Sure you can, it happened Northern Ireland during the early days of the Troubles, in South Africa under Apartheid, in Germany under the Third Reich. Can you imagine such a law existing in this day and age in Ireland? No? Well it does.

In June of last year, the Minister for Social Protection heralded a plan to get people the vital work experience they would need to improve their employment prospects. It would cost the employers nothing, thus encouraging them to get involved, and those on social welfare would surely be encouraged by the extra €50 on top of their welfare payments. There is one catch: If you are disabled, a lone parent, widowed, you are excluded.

Much of the criticism of JobBridge has been directed at the free labour aspect, supermarkets using JobBridge to find counter staff, shelf-stackers, and deli-personnel, farmers looking for labourers and delivery companies looking for drivers.

What has gone seemingly unnoticed is the way JobBridge is now pushing disabled people out of the labour market. Recently the Fine Gael TD for Wicklow, Simon Harris TD stated that he had encountered instances where people with disabilities were finding it more difficult to find work placements after completing courses as they were now competing with JobBridge for places. The option of applying for positions not being open to disabled people leaves them without the experience they need.

Minister Burton will no doubt tell you that disabled people don’t need to apply for JobBridge as they have numerous other schemes they can participate in, citing the Work Placement Programme as an example in a written parliamentary answer on December 1 of last year.

What her answer omitted to mention was that a facility was added to the JobBridge website which allowed employers to convert their WPP placements – which disabled people could apply for – into JobBridge internships, which they can’t.

‘As a person receiving a disability payment, I am persona non grata’

Then there is the type of positions being taken out of the reach of disabled people by JobBridge. I myself am completing a degree in journalism. When this is completed the most likely option in the current economic climate would be one of the many journalism related JobBridge internships – a little pointless when you consider most journalism degrees already involve six or more months of work placement.

This will not happen, however. As a person receiving a disability payment – I am registered blind – I am persona non grata. Even if the exact same jobs were available on WPP, disabled persons would be offered less money than able-bodied persons for doing the same work were they employed under JobBridge.

There is also the somewhat ludicrous situations that pop up from time to time on the JobBridge scheme, examples being adverts posted by the Irish Wheelchair association and Guide Dogs Ireland which – due to the rules of JobBridge – disabled people cannot apply for. In the case of the latter however I have been informed that they have the same position available under the WPP scheme. Even the Irish Family Planning Association have a position which single parents cannot apply for.

It would not cost the Government a lot to give access to these groups to the JobBridge scheme. Even taking into account the costs associated with the Workplace Adaptation Grant – a payment of up to €6,000 for making workplaces accessible for disabled employees – the cost would not even run into six figures. Not all 5,000 JobBridge positions would be filled by the disabled, and not all would use the whole €6,000.

What Minister Burton needs to realise is that equality is not a luxury that can be sacrificed like a Sky Digital subscription in hard times. It is a right, protected in both Irish and European law. It would work out cheaper, and would be more acceptable to the taxpayer, to allow access to the JobBridge scheme to these already marginalised sections of society, than it would be to defend an equality case in the courts. If Minister Burton fancies her chances with the latter option, I’m up for it.

Francis Dunne has had a visual impairment his entire life. After working for Ire-Tex Packaging until it went into receivership he started a degree in Journalism and New Media at the University of Limerick. Follow his Twitter, @squidlimerick, for the latest on JobBridge.