Web Accessibility Fixes for Public Sector Websites in Ireland
Councils, education and training boards, HSE-funded services and publicly funded charities in Ireland have to keep their websites and mobile apps accessible under the European Union (Accessibility of Websites and Mobile Applications of Public Sector Bodies) Regulations 2020. They also have to publish an accessibility statement that tells the truth about where the site falls short.
We audit your site against WCAG 2.1 AA, turn the failures into a fix plan your team can approve, carry out the fixes in your CMS or code, and retest. Our team works remotely from India, 4.5 to 5.5 hours ahead of Irish time, and we do not issue compliance certificates.
Ask about your public sector website
Send the website or app address, the platform it runs on and, if you have one, the monitoring notice or audit report you need to act on.
What the 2020 Regulations ask of Irish public bodies
This is a plain-language summary to help you plan. It is not legal advice, so check your obligations against the Regulations and the NDA's guidance.
The Regulations bring Directive (EU) 2016/2102, the Web Accessibility Directive, into Irish law. They came into force on 23 September 2020 and cover websites and mobile applications of public sector bodies. In practice the expected technical level is the harmonised European standard EN 301 549, which for web content follows WCAG 2.1 at level AA.
The accessibility statement is part of the duty
A public body must publish an accessibility statement saying how far its site or app meets the standard, which content is not accessible and why, and how people can report a problem or ask for the content in another format. A statement that claims full compliance when the site has known failures is a weakness in itself. So is a feedback link that goes to an inbox nobody checks.
Monitoring by the National Disability Authority
The National Disability Authority (NDA) is the monitoring body for the Directive in Ireland. It checks public sector websites every year and reports to the European Commission. The NDA has published a summary of its 2022–2024 monitoring. If your organisation receives a Notice of Monitoring, the findings usually become the starting list for remediation work.
Accessibility failures we fix on Irish public sector sites
These are typical problem areas. Your own audit decides the real list and the order.
Keyboard access and focus
Menus, accordions, cookie banners and booking widgets that cannot be reached or closed without a mouse, and focus outlines that are hidden or out of order.
Colour contrast and text resizing
Brand colours that fail contrast for body text, buttons or links, and layouts that break when text is enlarged or the page is zoomed.
Forms and online services
Missing labels, error messages a screen reader never announces, time limits and CAPTCHAs that block people applying for grants, permits or places on courses.
PDFs and documents
Untagged or scanned reports, minutes and application forms. We fix the important ones, suggest HTML versions where that works better, and list the rest honestly in your statement.
Irish-language and bilingual content
Irish passages marked with the correct language attribute so screen readers pronounce them properly, plus matching structure, alt text and labels on the English and Irish versions.
Mobile apps and embedded media
Touch targets, screen reader labels in Android and iOS apps we can work on, plus captions and transcripts for video published by your organisation.
From WCAG audit to retest for an Irish public body
Agree the sample and scope
We choose a representative set of pages, templates, documents and user journeys, such as reporting an issue, paying a fee or finding a service. Monitoring findings are included where you have them.
Audit against WCAG 2.1 AA
We use automated checks first, then manual testing with a keyboard, screen readers, zoom and contrast tools. Each failure is recorded with the success criterion, where it happens and how it affects a user.
Write a prioritised fix plan
Template-level and high-impact issues go first, because one template fix can correct hundreds of pages. For each item we say whether we fix it, your CMS supplier fixes it, or your content editors fix it.
Remediate
We change themes, components, forms and documents in your CMS or codebase, on a staging copy wherever possible, so your team approves the changes before they go live.
Retest and update the statement
We retest the same sample, record what passes and what is still open, and give you draft wording for the accessibility statement. Your organisation reviews and publishes it.
Who does what on an Irish public sector accessibility project
Responsibility for compliance stays with the public body. This table shows how the work is usually split.
| Task | Appeonix | Your organisation |
|---|---|---|
| Audit and evidence log | Carries out testing and documents each failure | Gives access and confirms which services are in scope |
| Code, theme and form fixes | Implements and tests on staging | Approves releases and coordinates with any CMS supplier |
| Content and documents | Fixes priority documents and trains editors on patterns | Keeps new content accessible after the project |
| Accessibility statement | Drafts factual wording from the retest results | Reviews, signs off, publishes and handles feedback |
| Disproportionate burden decisions | Gives technical effort estimates | Makes and documents the decision |
Honest limits of accessibility work for Irish public bodies
What we do
- Test manually with assistive technology, not only with automated scanners
- Show the WCAG success criterion behind every recommended fix
- Tell you plainly when a third-party system you use cannot be fixed from your side
What we do not do
- Issue certificates or claim that a site is officially compliant
- Install accessibility overlay widgets in place of fixing the underlying code
- Promise a particular outcome in NDA monitoring
Working with an India-based team on Irish public sector sites
Our team works from India, 4.5 to 5.5 hours ahead of Ireland depending on the time of year. Fixes made on staging during our day are usually ready for your team to review the same Irish morning. We arrange calls in the Irish morning or early afternoon.
We are not a local Irish firm and have no office or staff in Ireland. If procurement rules require a supplier registered in Ireland, check that before contacting us.
Illustrative example
Illustrative Business Scenario: a county-level arts body funded by a local authority receives monitoring findings on its events calendar and grant application form. The audit shows that the date picker cannot be used by keyboard and that form errors are shown only in red. Both are fixed at component level, retested with a screen reader, and the statement is updated to list the archived PDF programmes that remain unconverted. This is an illustrative example, not a description of a real client.
Who carries out your accessibility audit and fixes
The work is done by Appeonix Creative Lab, which has worked since 2014. It is an Indian micro enterprise registered under Udyam (UDYAM-KL-13-0116371), with its head office in Thrissur, Kerala, and an office in Indiranagar, Bengaluru. It also holds an Ontario business name registration, which is not a service office. Access to your CMS, hosting and repositories stays under your control and you can withdraw it at any time. Hourly and monthly rates are on our published rate card.
Related Appeonix services for Irish organisations
Questions from Irish public bodies about web accessibility
We received an NDA Notice of Monitoring. Can you work from its findings?
Yes. Send us the findings and we map each one to the page or template that causes it. We fix those first, then check whether the same problem appears elsewhere on the site before retesting.
Can you write our accessibility statement for us?
We draft factual wording from the audit and retest: what meets the standard, what does not and why, and how people can give feedback. Your organisation stays responsible for reviewing and publishing it, and for answering the feedback it receives.
Does an accessibility overlay plugin meet the Regulations?
We do not recommend relying on one. Overlays change how a page looks in the browser but do not fix the underlying markup, forms or documents. We fix the source code and content instead.
Our site is bilingual. Do Irish-language pages need separate testing?
We include both language versions in the test sample. The Irish pages need the correct language markup, equivalent alt text and labels, and the same structure as the English pages, so they need checking in their own right.
Can you fix a site built by another supplier on a WordPress-based or custom platform?
Usually, yes. We can fix WordPress, Laravel/PHP, Node.js, React or Next.js sites directly. If your platform is locked by a supplier, we write precise fix specifications for them and retest their changes.
Need to act on accessibility findings for your public sector website?
Send us your website or app and any monitoring findings. We will reply with the main barriers we can see and a suggested scope for the audit, fixes and retest.
Send an enquiry WhatsApp +91 99619 90007