The National Council for the Blind of Ireland (NCBI) has welcomed the announcement of a research initiative aimed at improving web accessibility for the visually impaired. A new programme in Dublin City University, which proposes to investigate the status, availability and uptake of assistive technologies by the visually impaired in Ireland, is "a huge step and very important", Stuart Lawler, the NCBI's technology manager, said.

The DCU programme, with a budget of more than €125,000, funded by AIB Bank, will, Lawler said, "be looking at accessibility to websites and the Internet for all. It will also be building a test website so as to allow people come on line and view and submit their own ideas for improvements and greater accessibility."

Dr Barry McMullin, dean of teaching and learning at DCU, said he believed that while the emerging information society had the "potential to substantially improve access to information for all citizens" there was a danger that its benefits would not be shared equally.

"Worse still," McMullin said, "existing inequities and social exclusion may actually be magnified by the inaccessibility of new technologies to particular social groups."

Once completed, the DCU research would "provide concrete and practical experience and advice" which would help Irish organisations committed to "developing a fully inclusive information society" to design their websites, McMullin said.

Lawler praised last year's Government guidelines on the clear design and lay-out for websites. "It means many public service websites have a standard design now and are as a consequence more accessible." Other initiatives to improve Internet access for the visually impaired are also in the pipeline.