Dr. Gerald Craddock:

I thank Deputy Harkin for her questions. We took over the role of national monitoring centre for the web accessibility directive in January 2021. Last year, we monitored over 300 websites on a weekly basis. In-depth monitoring of 56 websites, including mobile applications, showed that common errors include colour contrast. It is a significant issue.

We found that on more than 70% of the websites we monitor, or in the region of 150,000 to 200,000 pages weekly, colour contrast is a significant issue. PDFs are the bane of many people's lives, particularly those with disabilities, for whom they are a significant problem. Online forms and form-filling are also a significant barrier for many people, not only in terms of the language used but also their accessibility and usability.

As part of the proactive approach, we work closely with the Irish Computer Society. Last year, we ran ten online training programmes. We can send members a link to those if they would like to try them out. They are approximately one hour long and kind of lunch-and-learn sessions. We had more than 1,000 public officials engaged on the training last year. We are being proactive on that.

On cycling, we have made progress as a nation. We started off by having spaces that were shared between pedestrians and cyclists. Since then, we have learned, particularly from looking at Denmark in recent years, that cyclists need to be segregated from pedestrians and a physical barrier between them created. The physical space we have in cities is very restricted for what we are trying to implement in terms of having preference for pedestrians, cyclists and motorists. We have been working closely with the National Transport Authority, NTA. Gary Kearney has been mentioned several times at the committee. He is very much the eyes and ears in terms of what is happening in Dublin, anyone who has engaged with him will now. Probably the best practice we have seen is out of San Francisco. We have engaged with the NTA on looking at some of the designs. In particular, the issue of getting to the kerb, which came up earlier, is significant not only for people with disabilities, but also for older people and children. I traverse a very crowded area every morning to get to public transport and I see the major difficulties in that regard. There is work to be done. We are looking at best practice internationally on that and engaging on it regularly not only with the NTA but also with other key stakeholders. Cyclists are very much part of those discussions because it is pointless talking about the pedestrian space unless you are talking to cyclists.

I will hand over to Dr. Fitzpatrick to discuss sanctions, particularly under the European Accessibility Act which is upon us.