An official website of the Government of Ireland. About ireland.ie

Accessibility statement

Statement of commitment

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with European Union (Accessibility of Websites and Mobile Applications of Public Sector Bodies) Regulations 2020 (Statutory Instrument No. 358/2020).

Scope

This accessibility statement applies to the website Ireland.ie. It does not apply to other DFAT online applications, such as passportonline.dfa.ie, passporttracking.dfa.ie, fbr.dfa.ie or others.

Compliance status

This website is partially compliant with EN 301 549 V3.2.1, the harmonised European standard for accessibility requirements for ICT products and services (for web content, broadly equivalent to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA), due to the non-compliances listed below.

DFAT continues to assess and resolve any non-compliant or partially-compliant features on ireland.ie, in addition to the features listed below.

Non-accessible statement

Non-compliance

  • Audio descriptions are not provided for any prerecorded multimedia files. This is non-compliant with requirements 9.1.2.3 and 9.1.2.4 of the EN 301 549 v3.2.1 – the harmonised European standard for Accessibility requirements for ICT products and services. (WCAG success criteria equivalents: 1.2.3 and 1.2.5)
  • Complete captions are not provided for all prerecorded multimedia files. This is non-complaint with 9.1.2.2 of the EN 301 549 v3.2.1. (WCAG 1.2.2)
  • This website’s cookie consent banner is not accessible in the following ways:
  • Documents, such as PDFs, Word docs, spreadsheets and digitised PDFs (‘flipbooks’) are often not accessible on this website. As a result, they do not meet EN 301 549 v3.2.1 requirements for non-web documents (Clause 10), which incorporate the relevant WCAG 2.1 Level A/AA success criteria for documents. Common gaps include missing or incorrect tagging and reading order, missing alternative text, insufficient colour contrast, use of images of text, lack of reflow on small screens, missing document titles and meaningful link text, inadequate headings and labels, missing language metadata, inaccessible form fields, and incomplete role or value information.
  • The Passport Service webchat tool has the following non-compliances:
    • The keyboard focus indicator on the chat launcher is not visible against its background. Non-compliant with 9.2.4.7 of EN 301 549 V3.2.1 (WCAG 2.4.7).
    • Keyboard users can become stuck inside the open chat panel: moving forward with Tab cycles endlessly within the panel, while moving backward with Shift+Tab unexpectedly exits to the page behind it. Non-compliant with 9.2.1.2 of EN 301 549 V3.2.1 (WCAG 2.1.2).
  • The Consulate General San Francisco chatbot has the following non-compliances:
    • On page load, the chatbot automatically opens and moves keyboard focus into itself, so screen reader users are not given the page's title or content and are placed directly into the chat tool on every visit. Non-compliant with 9.2.4.3 of EN 301 549 V3.2.1 (WCAG 2.4.3).
    • When opened manually, tabbing forward from the launcher reaches the cookie preference control at the end of the page, then exits the page entirely. The chatbot's own content, including the message field, send button, FAQ links and menu, is not reachable by tabbing forward at all; it can only be reached by reversing direction with Shift+Tab. Non-compliant with 9.2.4.3 of EN 301 549 V3.2.1 (WCAG 2.4.3).
    • A number of controls within the chatbot are labelled with technical terms such as "scan" or "scan off" rather than a description of their function. Non compliant with 9.4.1.2 of EN 301 549 V3.2.1 (WCAG 4.1.2).

Disproportionate burden

DFAT has not identified any content on ireland.ie for which it is invoking the disproportionate burden exemption under Article 5 of Directive (EU) 2016/2102.

Out of scope

The following are out of scope of this statement, as third-party content that is neither funded, developed, nor controlled by DFAT (Article 1(4)(e) of Directive (EU) 2016/2102):

  • Third-party embeds, such as for social media.

Ongoing accessibility work

Accessibility issues identified through internal review, user feedback or external assessment, including by the National Disability Authority, are assessed and prioritised through DFAT's development and content programmes. The Department is also reviewing how it publishes documents on its website, to reduce reliance on formats that are difficult to make accessible

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 14 July 2026, using the results of automated and manual testing by the Department and the ireland.ie development agency's QA team, and an automated and manual review carried out by the National Disability Authority. This statement was last reviewed on 14 July 2026.

Feedback and contact information

If you find any problems with accessibility on this website, or if you need to find information from this website in a different format, please contact the Department’s Disability Inquiry Officer using this online contact form.

Where possible, we can provide inaccessible documents in an accessible format, or republish the content as an accessible webpage.

Enforcement procedure

If you contact us through our accessibility feedback and request mechanism above, and are not satisfied with our response, you can use one of the routes below.

Disability Act 2005

If your complaint is about our accessibility duties under the Disability Act 2005 (for example, access to information or services on our website), you can:

  1. Complain to us, by writing to the Secretary General of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, stating that this is a Section 38 complaint under the Disability Act. The Secretary general will appoint an Inquiry Officer to investigate and issue a written finding.
  2. If you are not satisfied with the result of the internal investigation above, you can ask the Office of the Ombudsman to review your complaint. Please see ombudsman.ie for details of how to make a complaint to the Ombudsman.

Equal Status Acts 2000-2018

If your complaint is about discrimination or a failure to provide reasonable accommodation when using ireland.ie or its services, you can:

  1. Notify us within 2 months of the incident.
  2. If you do not receive a satisfactory answer from us within 1 month, you can make a complaint to the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) within 6 months of the incident. Please see the WRC website for details.