In UCC, students with disabilities, whether or not they enter university through the Disability Access Route to Education (DARE) scheme, may register with the Disability Support Service (https://www.ucc.ie/en/dss/).  Services offered include access to assistive technology, educational support workers, and information for academic staff in disability awareness.

There are various Acts that address access to employment, goods and services and public bodies by people with disabilities: the Disability Act, the Employment Equality Acts and the Equal Status Acts.

The IHREC provides clear and comprehensive summaries of responsibilities or employers and providers of goods and services in their ‘Guides and Tools’ section on their website: https://www.ihrec.ie/guides-and-tools/

Obligations of public bodies under the Disability Act include the following:

• A public body shall ensure that its public buildings are, as far as practicable, accessible to persons with disabilities.
• Where a service is provided by a public body, the head of the body shall where practicable and appropriate, ensure that the provision of access to the service by persons with and persons without disabilities is integrated; provide for assistance, if requested, to persons with disabilities in accessing the service if the head is satisfied that such provision is necessary, and where appropriate, ensure the availability of persons with appropriate expertise and skills to give advice to the body about the means of ensuring that the service provided by the body is accessible to persons with disabilities.
• Where a service is provided to a public body, the head of the body shall ensure, as far as practicable, that the service is accessible to persons with disabilities.
• Where a public body communicates with one or more persons, the head of the body shall ensure if the communication is an oral one and the person or persons aforesaid has a hearing impairment and so requests, or if the communication is a written one and the person or persons aforesaid has a visual impairment and so requests, that, as far as practicable, the contents of the communication are communicated in a form that is accessible to the person concerned.
• A public body shall in so far as practicable take all reasonable measures to promote and support the employment by it of persons with disabilities.

In UCC

Outside of the DSS mentioned above, there are various groups/areas within the UCC community focussed on disability.

From 2018-2021 UCC's Autism-friendly University project ran, which completd many initiaitves during its time, including turning the Old College Bar into a Calm Zone for staff and students.  For more on this and other autism-friendly developments, see here.

As part of ISS21, the Disability and Mental Health Cluster is an interdisciplinary forum which brings together researchers, academics and practitioners from across the UCC community, whose individual interests reflect the coAnd mplexity and diversity of discourse in disability and mental health research.

And for those who wish to study, there are different courses from certificate onwards, such as ACE's Disability Studies, which challenges the way in which disability is understood in our society by developing new research and educational models. "The Certificate/Diploma in Disability Studies will help you to develop your critical awareness of the factors operating in the world of disability, to become aware of the ways in which different issues overlap and to explore ways of working around these. You will be encouraged to look at both your own attitudes, and the attitudes of others towards people with disabilities."

Useful links

Additional information on disability and neurodiversity can be found in the EDI Hub, and below are some links to groups and servies you may find useful or informative.

UCC Disability Support Service

Assist Ireland

National Disability Authority

Neurodiversity Ireland

Irish Society for Autism

Dyspraxia/DCD Ireland

AsIAm

Cork Deaf Association

National Council for the Blind Ireland