Ms Joan Carthy:

The work of the Irish Wheelchair Association is underpinned by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with a Disability, UNCRPD, which was ratified by Ireland in 2018. Article19 recognises the right of disabled people to live in the community and to have the opportunity to choose their place of residence. Furthermore, Article 28 includes the right of disabled people to access public housing programmes. People who have a mobility impairment and who are, or may become, full-time wheelchair users require appropriately designed and future-proofed housing that is located within mixed tenure sustainable housing developments that are perceived to be safe, in locations of people's choosing, and situated in close proximity to services, transport, family and friends. Currently, new dwellings are merely designed to be visitable under Part M of Ireland’s Building Regulations 2010.

Article 31(2) of the UNCRPD on statistics and data collection states "The information collected in accordance with this article shall be disaggregated, as appropriate, and used to help assess the implementation of States Parties’ obligations under the present Convention and to identify and address the barriers faced by persons with disabilities in exercising their rights." Currently, many local authorities cannot readily provide the number and type of wheelchair liveable housing units required in their area. The new social housing application form was launched by the Department in April 2021 and renewed further in quarter 1 of 2022. For the first time the form contains a specific field for the requirement of wheelchair liveable housing. Going forward, this valuable information, and associated software programmes such as ihouse, will facilitate ease of access to information on the number of wheelchair liveable houses required. However, all housing applications approved before April 2021 did not have this specific field. Therefore, local authorities have to review individual application forms, together with supporting documentation and reports, to establish how many wheelchair liveable housing units are required. If a local authority does not know the number and type of wheelchair liveable houses required, it is very difficult for it to plan with housing developers and social housing providers for the future, or to report on progress. The information on housing needs should be readily available for the public to inform housing planners and housing developers in each area. The Irish Wheelchair Association has representatives on 29 of the 30 housing and disability steering groups, where many local authorities state that they do not have the resources to retrospectively review existing approved social housing applicants to establish how many wheelchair liveable houses are required. This is a once-off project that needs to be completed as a matter of urgency to support planning, design and delivery. Currently, there are no statistics on the number of permanent wheelchair users in Ireland. The question is not covered in the Irish census. The data, when cross referenced with existing data, would greatly inform planning and delivery of infrastructure and services for the future across many areas including the built environment, the great outdoors, transport, education, health, employment, and so on. It is too late for the 2022 census, but action must be taken to ensure that the question is included in future censuses.