Help for Users with Disabilities

Introduction

"The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone, regardless of disability, is an essential aspect."
(Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the World Wide Web).

This Site

This site contains many features to help users with disabilities navigate easily. These include keyboard shortcuts for all major links and special links to enable users to jump over navigation bars to the next item. These features are described below.

Skip to content.

Speech and braille users generally read the page from top to bottom. On most sites, this means hearing a long list of repeated information before reaching the main content on any page. On this web site, the navigation bar is always preceded by a link (invisible to sighted users) labeled "Skip to Content." Select this link to jump to the main content on the page.

Using the Tab Key to jump between links

You can use the tab key on your keyboard to jump from one link to the next. All navigation bars in the site provide a logical order for this.

Zooming in and font sizes

This site makes use of stylesheets that allow for flexible resizing of fonts to meet user requirements. If you find that font sizes are too small simply increase the default font size used in your web browser software (for example, in Internet Explorer font sizes can be changed in the View Menu under "Text Size"). This feature may not work correctly in all web browsers.

Keyboard Shortcuts

The following is a list of shortcut keys that enable users (provided their browser software permits) to access links in the site and a number of buttons, or actions by pressing the keys on their keyboard. Depending on the user's browser software the keys below are usually pressed in combination with other keys such as ALT or CTRL. Consult your web browser documentation for further details.

Page Menu Links :

Home - a
Statistics - b
The Asylum Process - c
Publications - d
Find Us- e
Links - f
Customer Service- g
Text Only- h
Accessibility (this page) - i
Site Map - j
Links - k

PDF format (.pdf) or Adobe Acrobat format

Some of the information on this website is available in PDF format to provide for easier reading and printing offline. This format is not (except in the case of the latest version, version 5) readily accessible to users with disabilities. Where possible text only accessible version of these will be provided, although this will not be the case in all instances.

Contact Us

If you encounter any difficulties in using this site please let us know by emailing us at  oracmail@orac.ie

Resources and Links

There are numerous resources and links available on the web for users with disabilities. We have listed here a few portal sites that can serve as starting points for researching this topic, finding resources and locating communities.

Web Accessibility Initiative
http://www.w3.org/WAI/

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/

Checklist of Checkpoints for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/full-checklist.html

Irish National Disability Authority IT Accessibility Guidelines Version 1.1
What is Accessibility?
http://www.accessit.nda.ie/what_is_accessibility.html

About Web Accessibility
http://www.accessit.nda.ie/about_1.html

Guidelines for Web Accessibility
http://www.accessit.nda.ie/guidelineindex_1.html

Checklist for Web Accessibility
http://www.accessit.nda.ie/checklist_1.html