A group of people with disabilities who were invited to Leinster House to deliver training on accessibility ended up "trapped" and "embarrassed" after a lift broke down in the parliamentary complex.
The organisation, which provides disability awareness training, said they were "astonished" at how inaccessible Leinster House was after their visit to Dublin last year.
In an email, they described supposedly accessible toilets that were not large enough to cater for wheelchairs, buses being refused access to drop off people with mobility issues, and a broken-down lift that left five members "stranded".
They told the head of the Oireachtas that members were stuck in a corridor and "very embarrassed" as able-bodied people had to "edge" their way past them on their way to offices or lunch.
A message said: "From the moment of our arrival, we encountered barriers and exclusion."
The visit was made by members of the HSE Gold Star Disability Awareness Training programme and volunteers from Tipperary last June on the invitation of an Oireachtas member.
In the email, they said the room where they delivered their training session was inaccessible on "a number of disability access levels".
Then, when members were trying to go downstairs to the restaurant, one lift broke down and another was discovered to be out of service.
The email said: "The lift to offer access to the lower corridor en route to the restaurant broke down when we had five people safely down, leaving others stranded at the top.
"Once these five people tried to continue to access the restaurant, they were met with a note on the second lift that said, 'temporarily out of order'."
The email continued: "Every person there was tired, embarrassed, disappointed, hungry and let down once more in terms of their rights to universal access and the dignity of using a toilet privately."
It said these were just some of the issues that needed to be addressed and asked for a meeting with Oireachtas management.
'Sincere apologies'
In response, Clerk of the Dáil Peter Finnegan expressed his "sincere apologies" for how the visit had unfolded.
"We fell well short of the standards that people are entitled to expect when they visit their National Parliament," he said.
A representative of the group returned in July to give advice on how Leinster House could be made more accessible for people with disabilities.
However, progress has been slow, in particular around the replacement and upgrading of lifts, work that has be carried out by the Office of Public Works (OPW).
In September, the representative of the group wrote again to ask if there had been any update.
The Oireachtas said a public procurement process for a new lift would start soon and that an additional accessible toilet would be provided.
A message said some toilets that had previously been marked "accessible" were no longer signposted as such and that training for all staff was scheduled for this year.
In December, the group responded saying members were "very patient" but were "anxious to know that they are not forgotten".
By April, they said they were "quite anxious" to see if changes had taken place and whether a return visit was possible.
In response, Mr Finnegan said the new accessible toilet project was complete and a job coach [and] disability liaison officer was to be appointed imminently.
However, the lift problem was proving a bigger challenge.
"The advice provided by the OPW is that the project to install a new platform lift for the Member’s restaurant will be more complex than just simply replacing the existing lift," Mr Finnegan said in an email.
"The overall solution for the area requires changes to access and egress and some internal changes to offices and security posts."
He added that while progress had been made, they were not "as far advanced" as they hoped, especially on the provision of a new lift.
