Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 25 October 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Disability Matters

Ensuring Inclusive Local and EU Elections: Discussion

Mr. Art O'Leary:

To be helpful to the committee, in 2019 there were 100 polling stations in the country. Last year, that was reduced to 23. There are now 23 buildings which are inaccessible and that sounds as if great progress has been made but the figure should be zero. The fact that there are only 23 buildings means the challenge of turning 23 to zero is not as great as turning 100 to zero. We need to push this. Elections happen once every number of years but most of these buildings are schools. Children are attending these inaccessible schools so it is not just about voting. I know we are here to talk about that today but we should be working in this area.