Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 17 January 2024
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Disability Matters
Planning for Inclusive Communities: Discussion (Resumed)
Mr. Barry Lynch:
On the universal design piece as well, that is obviously very important. We try in our individual schemes. We obviously have generically accessible housing but we also tailor it specifically to the individuals. The other piece about lining up the care package, which has been referred to several times, is something we try to achieve at the disability action teams. We are taking a similar approach as we would have with, say, severe homeless cases where we would work through Housing First cases. At our homeless action team, we try to achieve a similar result with people with high support-needs with disabilities. Certainly, the standard that is there for universal design will cover everything, including the circulation areas, all the accessibility and the environment around the house which the NSAI is developing. The other thing is that there is quite a bit of focus through the Age Friendly shared service and being age friendly in the public realm, which would be similar to what is needed for disability. Again, we are working through the network of age friendly and disability technical advisers to try to improve that awareness in each local authority around the country to make sure the projects are designed with that in mind. There will be a lot of information coming out over the next 12 months on universal design, which hopefully will get into the mainstream.
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