Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 10 April 2024

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Disability Matters

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities at Local Level: Discussion

Mr. Donal Leahy:

There are two answers to that. In general terms there is no problem. Let us put it like that. People just go to the facilities department and there is no distinction as to whether someone needs something because of a disability or because someone needs an additional piece of IT equipment. The facilities department accommodates it quickly and it gets sorted. That is the easy version of the answer.

Being slightly sharper on ourselves, I will say that we are happy that we are compliant with reasonable accommodation requirements, but we do not have a transparent policy which is out there. If anyone questions our policy, we are happy we can defend it, but we are working on having a transparent policy at the moment, so that a policy will be out there in a proactive way in order that people do not necessarily have to ask. They will be able to point to the policy and know what they are entitled to. We are working on that at the moment.