Accessibility Statement
Our commitment and approach to maintaining an accessible website
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is committed to providing an accessible website. Our commitment to this is stated in our Customer Service. We are constantly working to improve the accessibility of our website. Contact details of our Access Officer can be found below.
The EPA is committed to ensuring that this website achieves "Double-A" conformance with the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0. This means that every page will comply with all checkpoints in the top 2 priorities of WCAG 1.0, to comply with the National Disability Authority's Code of Practices on Accessibility of Public Services and Information Provided by Public Bodies. The National Disability Authority's Centre of Excellence in Universal Design has an introduction to policy and legislation relevant to Universal Design in Ireland.
The EPA is committed to ensuring that any new additions to the website will achieve "Level AA" conformance to the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0.
The EPA is committed to ensuring that accessibility will feature in any future procurement requests for 3rd-party systems or upgrades to existing systems.
Statement of the website's conformance with official accessibility guidelines
The most recent web accessibility audit on the EPA website took place in June 2008. The following sections were excluded from the audit as they were under construction and development at the time of the audit.
WCAG 2.0 guidelines were introduced since the EPA last accessibility audit. All future audits of the EPA website will be conduced under WCAG 2.0 Guidelines.
Areas for improvement
We are aware of some areas on the website where accessibility can be improved. We are currently working to achieve this. We hope that this website will achieve full 'Double A"conformance with the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0 in the near future.
| Section of website | Need for improvement | Time-line for improvement | Alternative access |
|---|---|---|---|
| Online Videos | Not all videos on the EPA website have subtitles and /or transcripts available. | Work is currently in progress on this section. | Please contact webfeedback@epa.ie or telephone 053-9160600 should you wish to received the videos in an accessible format. |
| Documents and Forms | Some forms are provided only in Word format to facilitate the completion by comsumers on line. Others documents and forms are provided in Word or PDF formats which are not accessible. |
It is envisaged that new documents and forms created for the website will be accessible but unfortunately due to nature and age of some documents and forms it is not practical for these items to be made accessible. | If you require an accessible version of any document or form on the EPA website, please email webfeedback@epa.ie or telephone 053-9160600. |
| Map-based information | Map-based information is not currently accessible for example http://gis.epa.ie/, http://bathingwater.ie |
This is an issue that is currently being addressed and some measures will be put in place. The Bathing Water website will be redeveloped for the 2011 bathing season. | If you require assistance in viewing the maps section of the EPA website please email webfeedback@epa.ie or telephone 053-9160600. |
| Electronic submissions of reports | Electronic submission of data for example AER / PRTR Annual Environmental Reporting Website http://aer.epa.ie/reporting/ This website is used by licensed facilitites to submit annual reporting details. |
Unique usernames and passwords are required to access this area to submit data. There is currently a CAPTCHA required to access this site. | Details on accessing this area can be acquired by contacting us by email at aerreturns@epa.ie or telephone 053-9160600. |
| Mark-up | Pages are designed to validate as DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional. There are a number of remaining validation errors, but work is ongoing to fix these. | Where pages are found to contain error during auditing, they will be rectified as soon as possible. | If there are specific pages that are unusable because of missing meta elements, please email webfeedback@epa.ie. |
PDF Documents
The EPA makes use of Portable Document Format (pdf). A percentage of the documents on our website are available in this format. To view these documents you will need to install the free Adobe Acrobat Reader software. 
Download Adobe Acrobat Reader Software.
Should you have any issue with downloading documents for our website please email us at webfeedback@epa.ie or phone us at 053-9160600.
Accessible features of this website
The EPA website uses cascading style sheets for visual layout. This ensures that content is perfectly linearised and improves performance on a wide range of browsers and other user agents. It is also screen reader friendly which makes the site accessible to more of our citizens.
We are aware of some areas on the website where accessibility can be improved. We are currently working to achieve this. Also, work is ongoing to make some pdf documents on our site more accessible and a summary in HTML has been included with each pdf document.
Where possible, new content published is in accessible HTML. If you require information in an alternative format please e-mail us at webfeedback@epa.ie or phone us at 053-9160600. For help with using the site and its various accessibility features go to our Change Display Preferences page.
Accessible Information Policy
In our Accessible Information Policy the EPA is committed to ensuring, where practicable, that information available to the public is available in an accessible format.
Maintaining accessibility
The EPA is committed to maintaining and monitoring the accessibility of this website.
To help deliver and maintain an accessible website the EPA has published internal guidelines to guide web administrators and authors in the creation of accessible web content.
These guidelines cover issues such as
- Creating user friendly web content
- Writing meaningful alternative text
- Creating accessible tables
- Creating accessible link phrases
Accessibility Officer
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has appointed an Access Officer in accordance with section 26(2) of the Disability Act 2005. The Access officer is responsible for providing or arranging for, and co-ordinating assistance and guidance, to persons with disabilities accessing services provided by the EPA. The Access officer can be contacted as follows:
| Wexford, Head Quarters | Dublin, Richview |
|---|---|
Ms. Geraldine Ruane |
Ms. Kathleen Maguire McCumiskey House, Richview, Clonskeagh, Dublin 14 Telephone: 353-1-2680100 Fax Numbers: 353-1-2680199 Email address: k.maguire@epa.ie |
Send Us Your Feedback
Feedback on the accessibility of our website should be emailed to webfeedback@epa.ie.