International Day of Persons with Disabilities

03 December 2024

Iarnród Éireann marks International Day of Persons with Disabilities as part of its ongoing commitment to support customers with additional needs

Today is UN International Day of Persons with Disabilities.  This is a day to recognise people living with all kinds of disabilities, both visible and hidden. It is estimated that one billion people worldwide are living with disabilities, which can impact on their day to day lives and places barriers to inclusion in modern day society.

The aim of International Day of Persons with Disabilities is to promote the empowerment and help create opportunities for people living with a disability.

Following on from previous years, the Athlone Viaduct and Heuston station will be lit up in purple in support of the annual #PurpleLights campaign, a celebration of UN International Day of Persons with Disabilities.

Speaking about #PurpleLights24, the campaign’s founder and member of the Iarnród Éireann Disability User Group Gary Kearney said, “This campaign is something very close to my heart. It's a day of celebration, inclusion and awareness where we shine a light on disability. I am really looking forward to seeing this year's engagement with the campaign. I have no doubt that we will have a wonderful response to the day.”

Jim Meade, CEO if Iarnród Éireann said: “At Iarnród Eireann we are always striving towards providing a more inclusive service across each aspect of our business. More recently over the past year we have taken some steps toward creating a more inclusive service”  

Initiatives undertaken by Iarnród Éireann to support customers with disabilities:

• January - The Alzheimer’s Society of Ireland travelled to Mallow to train the Customer Experience team from the Cork area on dementia awareness.
• February - Dublin City PPN, Disability Thematic Group Event at the Mansion House
  Head of Customer Care and Accessibility at Iarnród Éireann, Ronan Murphy, attended DD PPN event hosted by the Lord Mayor of Dublin to recognise good and bad accessibility design in Dublin city. Iarnród Eireann were praised for our work in including disability users from the design phase of projects.

• April - Lord Mayor Autism Workshop: The Lord Mayor of Dublin invited Iarnród Eireann and 60 other leading organisations in Dublin to autism workshop hosted by As I Am with a vision to make Dublin an autism friendly city.

• May - Sign Language: The first cohort of Customer Service Officers completed their Basic Sign Language training completed through the Irish Deaf Society.

• June - Accessibility Event Support Officers: A pilot will commence for the St Annes Park concerts at Harmonstown station to have a dedicated Accessibility Event Support Officer in a Purple Bib to handle any accessibility requests.

• July - Banteer Station Lifts and Footbridge Opening: The official opening of the fantastic new lifts and footbridge took place at Banteer station on the 18th of July with members of the Disability User Group in attendance.
• August - Our third Changing Places facility opened at Colbert Station in Limerick.
• Make Way Day September 2024 - Make Way Day is a campaign that brings the disability and wider community together to consider the needs of people with disabilities in the public spaces we all share.
  It is led by the Disability Federation of Ireland and is a unique collaboration across Ireland and the voluntary and local government sectors. Iarnród Éireann worked with retailers to remove sandwich boards from stations on the day.
• October - New Accessibility training contract signed with Vision Ireland for the provision of disability awareness training for 1600 staff over three years.
• November - Epilepsy training planned for DART staff took place at the end of November.
• December – International Day for People with Disabilities Awareness Day.

Iarnród Éireann’s Disability User Group met formally three times during 2024 and had separate workshops on Tactile Wayfinding and Sensory Pods.  The Disability User Group took part in Age Friendly Station audits at 8 stations throughout the network. A newsletter was also distributed Quarterly to wider audience with accessibility project updates.