Mr. Sean Doran:

As Ms McGriele said, there is a major problem with accessing information online. It is an invisible barrier to equality because accessibility is easily understood in the built environment because it involves ramps and railings. However, when you speak to employers or owners of websites, and talk about them making their websites accessible, they know that their websites are functional. They know that someone with sight can use the site with just a click of a button. They do not understand how a person with a disability interacts with their website. If a website cannot be fully accessed using a screen-reader then a person cannot navigate their way through the website. Maybe a person with a disability can get all the information on a job but, when he or she wants to upload his or her CV, the button will not be labelled or you cannot access it or move to it.

The web content accessibility guidelines, WCAG, apply to websites. The public sector must adopt the guidelines by 2025, and with the European Accessibility Act, that means both public and private entities. We are starting to slowly adopt the guidelines in lots of e-commerce or employment websites but there is slow traction. A person's access to information can be blocked. Let us say a video about a job is uploaded but a person who is deaf cannot hear it and there are no captions provided on the video. Another example is where bank customers are sent a multi-factor identification to the customer's phone when he or she tries to log on to his or her account. A person with neurological or motor-skill issues will need more than two minutes to reach his or her phone, get the information and input it in order to access his or her bank account. When websites start adhering to these standards then an ever increasing number of people will be able to use them. At present there is a large number of people with disabilities throughout Ireland and Europe so there is a large demographic of people who cannot access these services.