A Dublin campaign group has called for action by the Department of Health and the Health Service Executive to improve access to public health services for people with disabilities.
The Centre for Independent Living, which inspected seven HSE health centres in Dublin's inner city, found that five of them were inaccessible by wheelchair. The other two were accessible by wheelchair, but the disabled toilets were not in use.
"We were shocked that, out of the seven health centres we investigated, there was a problem with all of them," said Gerald Luke, a spokesman for the centre, which campaigns for people with disabilities. The centre now intends to investigate all health centres in Dublin to evaluate their wheelchair accessibility.
The HSE yesterday acknowledged that a number of public health centres were not wheelchair accessible.