Mr. Eoin O'Herlihy:

To clarify Mr. Cunningham's point, universal design guidelines have been published by the National Disability Authority. There are different levels for how to achieve universal design within housing and different categories within the guidelines. A designer or developer may use the basic universal design standard and think he or she is getting a fully wheelchair accessible house, but unfortunately that will not be the case. There are different levels within the universal design home standards that need to be considered.

Using the universal design basic standard alone does not make a house fully wheelchair accessible in terms of meeting the needs of someone with a powered wheelchair and so on. It is important that is clarified for local authorities, housing bodies, designers and developers. There needs to be more awareness around the fact that not all levels of universal design standards and guidelines will achieve full accessibility.